CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF BRAZILIAN COMPANIES IN THE ENERGY SECTOR

Corporate social responsibility is a topic that has been debated worldwide, and it gained momentum in Brazil from the late 1990s. Evidently, there are two theoretical trends dominating this theme: the first one argues that it is not up to the company to adopt this activity (stockholders), and the second one argues that it is (stakeholders). The empirical studies reviewed did not show a con-elation between corporate social responsibility and the financial performance of companies. This work sought to study this relationship, using operating income as dependent variable, and the social indicators, as defined by the IBASE (Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analysis), of companies in the Brazilian energy sector, as independent variables. The model estimates were performed through a panel with fixed effects. The results showed that every 1% invested in internal, external, and environmental social indicators had the following impact: 0.37%, 0.45%, and 0.11%, respectively, on operating income.