The Impact of Social Responsibility Performance on the Value Relevance of Financial Data in the Banking Sector: Evidence from Poland

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is inevitably becoming an increasingly important part of almost every business. This is particularly true for the banking industry, which suffered substantial losses in reputation and public trust in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Not surprisingly therefore, banks around the world have visibly intensified their CSR efforts. One of the key dimensions of CSR regards the reliability and transparency of a firm’s communication with the market, which suggests that information disclosed by responsible companies may be more value relevant. The related evidence, especially in the banking sector, is however modest and mixed. The paper aims, therefore, at empirical investigation of the impact of social responsibility performance on the value relevance of financial data in the Polish banking sector. The research employs multivariate regression analysis based on the Ohlson model and the Chow test for structural breaks. The examined sample covers 154 bank-year observations of 17 banks listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange from 2009–2020. The results suggest that financial disclosures of banks included in CSR indices are generally more value relevant. Additionally, more responsible banks exhibit higher (lower) responsiveness of market values to net earnings (book values of equity) compared to their less socially responsible counterparts.