Corporate social Responsibility: strengthening brand Value and Affecting Company’s Financial Performance

The article aims to identify the influence of corporate social responsibility on the relationship between brand value and the company’s financial performance. The methodological basis of the work is an empirical study of an open data sample on 78 American companies for 2000-2019. The authors analyzed 962 observations from the Thomson Reuters Eikon database. The Interbrand consulting agency was the source for determining the brand value. Built by the authors, three regression models rely on panel data and control an extended set of accounting and corporate variables. The evaluation of the models employs a fixed effects model. The authors conclude that corporate investments in social responsibility activities have a positive indirect effect on the company’s financial performance, such as return on assets and market capitalization: the influence of brand value on these indicators increases due to a high level of corporate social responsibility and ethical behavior. The study showed that the level of corporate social responsibility neither enhances nor it weakens the influence of the brand on the return on equity. The study results may be of practical use to owners, top management of companies and investors when making the company’s strategy and investment decisions. Moreover, the research materials can be used by public authorities to stimulate the corporate social responsibility. The prospects for future research may relate to lifting the current restrictions: research on samples that include more heterogeneous companies and/or companies from different countries.

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