摘要：This paper revisits the issue of whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) possesses arelationship with financial performance by working from previous databases. Also, an effort ismade to ascertain the existence of causality. This study finds causality to exist, but in contrast tomost earlier studies, the relationship is negative. Additionally, this study points out that moniesdiverted to CSR activities could have been expended on more direct contributions to overallfinancial performance, thus the so called "opportunity cost" of moving CSR expenditures toexpenditures that improve financial performance remains unaccounted for. If nothing else, thenegative causal relationship found in this study may be understated.
关键词：Corporate social responsibility; financial performance; profitability
