Corporate social responsibility, firm value and financial performance in Brazil

The purpose of the paper is to examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm performance, taking into account firm value and financial accounting performance, in an emerging market – Brazil.

Content analysis was conducted to extract data from two different sources, one relative to CSR data and another that provided financial data. CSR indexes and financial performance measures were calculated to allow the estimation of regression analysis conducted to examine the relationship between CSR and performance.

The results indicate that CSR is value destroying in Brazil since a significant negative correlation between CSR and firm value was found. Additionally, a neutral relationship characterises the mutual effect between CSR and financial accounting performance.

The study has examined the relationship between CSR and firm performance in a country where, as in most other non‐developed markets, such a relationship has not been an object of research. Besides, the use of a three dimensional measure of CSR, mainly considering research undertaken in an emerging market, as a valuable contribution may be observed.