摘要：The relationship between the corporate social and financial performance has already been explored in many empirical studies. Meta-analyses based on these studies confirm that positive financial outcomes result from firms´ social strategies. This confirmation should stimulate investments in social actions, practices and processes. However, as managers´ beliefs and interests drive their investment decisions, high-level executives may limit firms´ investments in social strategies if they are unaware or do not believe in a positive corporate social-financial performance link. This research therefore set out to investigate if managers do believe that social actions, practices and processes lead to superior financial performance. Data on the perception of 112 top-managers of Brazilian companies collected through a survey showed that, according to high-level executives, socially-responsible actions have a positive indirect effect on firms´ profitability, due to the increase they cause on stakeholders’ satisfaction. Managers´ decisions to invest in socially responsible strategies are not entirely based on financial returns and, thus, proving the CSP-financial performance link should not be the main focus. Researcher should now concentrate on the social strategies-stakeholder satisfaction-financial performance link. Top-management beliefs and decision-making processes have to be considered in future studies on the subject. Furthermore, there is the need to consider how much top managers and stakeholders actually know of firms´ social strategies and how long does it takes for them to become aware of it. Given these research outcomes, departments responsible for social strategies need to market heavily the positive outcomes of their efforts to assure future investments.
