The Push Factors for Corporate Social Responsibility: A Probit Analysis

In the last two decades in OECD countries there has been increased development of Social Responsible (CSR is the acronym of Corporate Social Responsibility) certified firms. This certification is assigned by public and private companies which guarantee that the behaviour of a certain firm is environmentally and sociologically correct. The first part of our work is devoted at establishing a certification index defined as the intersection of two of the three main international indices (Domini 400 Social Index, Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, FTSE4Good Index). The purpose of this is to overcome certain problems related to the multiplicity of CSR definitions and certifications. The sample obtained is a data panel of 417 enterprises (317 CSR firms and 100 firms as a control sample) belonging mainly to OCSE countries. The core of our analysis makes some probit analyses in order to study the structural causes that push enterprises towards social certification. The descriptive statistics, combined and supported by probit analysis, seem to stress the focal role of economic development as one of the main causes of social certification. Moreover, we have also studied the role of industrial sectors in social certification and other variables such as critical consumption and the structural production system of the enterprises.