The Effect of CEO Ownership on Corporate Social Responsibility

This article focuses on CSR as a source of conflicts of interest between CEOs and shareholders. Although CSR may serve shareholder interests in the long run, it may also strengthen CEO entrenchment by promoting coalitions with specific stakeholders, effectively bypassing shareholder interests. We use a sample of 591 listed companies evaluated by the social rating agency VIGEO between 2008 and 2011 (1,405 firmyear observations) to highlight the existence of a non-linear relationship between CEO ownership and CSR. Our results suggest that specific private benefits are associated with CSR and that entrenchment significantly influences CSR, providing evidence that CEOs may effectively be instrumentalizing CSR.