Signaling Positive Corporate Social Performance

A firm’s social performance can shape the impressions of key stakeholders, such as employees, customers, suppliers, and investors, that influence subsequent decision making and relationships to the firm. To test this notion, we examine how a firm’s public recognition for exemplary social performance can serve as a positive signal of the firm’s business performance to shareholders. We conduct an event study of firms named to Working Mothermagazine’s list of “Most Family- Friendly Companies” for the first time between 1989 and 1994. We find statistically significant, positive, abnormal returns for such firms, in particular for firms whose shares are traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange.