Relationship between CSR and Financial Performance - Companies within ZSE CROBEX10® Index

Abstract

The main objective of this research paper is to examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance (FP) of the companies included in the official share index of the Zagreb Stock Exchange. CROBEX10® includes shares of 10 companies traded at the regulated market in Croatia. Corporate social responsibility is a factor having an important role in the consumer selection of products and services. Thus, CSR is increasingly gaining in importance because it creates organizational value for a company by giving the ability to differentiate the company from its competitors. All successful companies in the world have recognized the importance of CSR, but not all are equally successful in its implementation. Although many empirical studies found a link between the quality of CSR and the company performance measured by financial indicators, there is still a lot of inconsistency in the results of previous research, mainly due to the factors influencing this relation. The paper starts from the general premise that there is no relationship between CSR and FP, for companies included in CROBEX10®. In this paper common indicators such as the measure of the financial performance (such as ROA and ROE) are determined by using document analysis method. Levels of CSR indicators are evaluated by using content analysis. The relationship between CSR and financial performance is interpreted using descriptive statistics, method of simple regression analysis and factor analysis.