Does Ownership Form Matter for Corporate Social Responsibility? A Longitudinal Comparison of Environmental Performance between Public, Private, and Joint-venture Firms

This study examines whether a firm's ownership form has any influence on its social performance. Conventional wisdom suggests that public (publicly traded) corporations are more susceptible to corruption and socially irresponsible behavior than privately owned corporations because of the intense short-term profit maximization pressure from shareholders and the lack of sufficient monitoring mechanisms. This study introduces an alternate perspective in thinking about the relationship between ownership form and corporate social responsibility. This study reasons that public corporations are more likely to become socially responsible because of their greater exposure to external influence and greater dependence on external actors with diverse interests. Using a panel data on the pollution management practices of 118 industrial facilities over a 13-year period, this study shows that public corporations were indeed subject to greater external pressure to reduce pollution, and the pressure led to consistently stronger environmental performance.