Corporate Social Responsibility: How Do Firms Get Treated By the Press?

Jiao Luo, Stephan Meier, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee have published a new working paper titled, "No News Is Good News: CSR Strategy and Newspaper Coverage of Negative Firm Events."  They test the conventional wisdom that companies with strong corporate social responsibility programs build up lots of good will that can help them in difficult times. They examine firms in the oil industry specifically.  In fact, they find that, "the media far more likely to report accidents if they occur at a company with a superior CSR record. Rather than acting as an effective form of insurance, our results suggest that a strong CSR record can be a liability. Moreover, the tone of coverage is no less critical for organizations with a greener reputation."