Essays on corporate social responsibility and strategic leadership

• Main Author: TONG, Li
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2020
• Subjects: Business and Corporate Communications; Leadership Studies; Strategic Management Policy
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/etd_coll/273; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1273&context=etd_coll
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This dissertation two issues related to business ethics: how corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects the value creation in an acquisition and how corporate decoupling behaviors are driven by the CEO narcissism, consisting of two essays. The first essay examines how target corporate social responsibility affects the economic gains for acquirers, as reflected in market reaction to acquisition announcement, from two distinct perspectives: stakeholder preservation versus stakeholder appropriation. The stakeholder preservation perspective suggests that positive market reaction to an acquisition stems from potential new value creation by honoring implicit contracts and maintaining good relationships with target stakeholders. By contrast, the stakeholder appropriation perspective posits that positive market reaction is primarily derived through wealth transfer to acquirers by defaulting on implicit contracts with target stakeholders. Findings from this essay indicate that target CSR is positively associated with acquirer abnormal returns upon acquisition announcement. Moreover, stakeholder value congruence between the merging firms strengthens this positive relationship, whereas business similarity between them weakens it. These findings align with the stakeholder preservation perspective and challenge the stakeholder appropriation perspective. The second essay investigates antecedents of corporate decoupling behaviors from the perspective of CEO attributes. This essay is conducted in the context of corporate buyback program. Corporate decoupling happens when a firm announces a buyback policy but does not implement the buyback program. Findings from this essay suggest that there is a positive relationship between CEO narcissism and buyback policy adoption whereas, following a buyback policy adoption, there is a negative relationship between CEO narcissism and buyback program implementation. Also, this essay examines the peer influence on a focal firm’s buyback practice and finds that peer buyback policy adoption will weaken the relationship between CEO narcissism and firm buyback policy adoption. In addition, the buyback policy adoption initiated by more narcissistic CEOs receives less favorable stock market reactions.