Institutional Logics in the Study of Organizations: The Social Construction of the Relationship between Corporate Social and Financial Performance

This study examines whether the empirical evidence on the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) differs depending on the publication outlet in which that evidence appears. This moderator meta-analysis, based on a total sample size of 33,878 observations, suggests that published CSP-CFP findings have been shaped by differences in institutional logics in different subdisciplines of organization studies. In economics, finance, and accounting journals, the average correlations were only about half the magnitude of the findings published in Social Issues in Management, Business Ethics, or Business and Society journals (mean corrected correlation coefficient (rho) over bar of 22 vs..49, respectively). Specifically, economists did not find null or negative CSP-CFP correlations, and average findings published in general management outlets ((rho) over bar = .41) were closer to Social Issues in Management, Business Ethics, and Business and Society results than to findings reported in economics, finance, and accounting journals.