Impactos da Responsabilidade Social Corporativa no Desempenho de Indústrias: Teste Empírico nas Operadoras Brasileiras de Planos de Saúde e Odontológicos

Abstract

Purpose of the study: Our main objective with this study was to evaluate the impact of corporate social responsibility on Brazilian health/dental insurance companies. Methodology / approach: This is an empirical research. We conducted a survey to a sample of 123 companies in the sector of health/dental insurance. We treated data through Cluster Analysis, MANOVA and ANOVA. We analyzed the constructs “performance” and “corporate social responsibility” through bibliographic review and the help of expert advice. We used 12 independent variables for the construct “social responsibility”. For the construct “performance”, we applied objective and subjective variables. Originality / Relevance: This paper intends to bring empirical evidence from a sector that has not been extensively studied – health/dental insurance companies. It also brings an innovative contribution with the operationalization of the constructs and the proposition of taxonomy for the practice of social responsibility by the companies. Main results: In this study, we identified strategic orientation patterns of the operators of health insurance sector regarding the adoption of social responsibility practices. We also present strategic taxonomy of the sector operators identifying four clusters: 1) financially inefficient environmentalists; 2) those ones engaged in the community with financial loss; 3) profit-making transparency; 4) legalistic and social with financial loss. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the four clusters of social responsibility in relation to the “performance” dimension. Theoretical / methodological contributions: We consider the creation of taxonomy for the practice of social responsibility by the health/dental insurance companies and the identification of the variables that operationalize this construct in the sector as an important contribution to the theory involving this sector.