Effects of Corporate Social Responsibility on firms’ Capital Structure choice

• Autor(a) principal: Vinhas, Ana Luís Silva
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/32050
• topic: Corporate social responsibility; Capital structure; Equity; Debt; Financial performance; Portugal

The main objective of this study is to see how Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) affects firms’ choice of capital structure and what are the implications of disclosure of CSR statements on the capital structure. There is a need to better understand the relationship between CSR and capital structure, and that is the objective inserted in this dissertation theme. There are no studies, as far as we are aware of, related to this theme and linked to the market of Portuguese companies, so it would be important to study the specific case of Portugal and understand the impact of Corporate Social Responsibility concerning the capital structure of some companies. To perform this study we use a sample of 22 Portuguese companies listed on the stock exchange between 2010 and 2019. The main conclusions that can be drawn from the results are that reporting and CSR practices impact the capital structure of the companies under study, especially leverage. Also, the release of sustainability reports or CSR statements in annual reports has increased over the years, which indicates a greater concern of the companies. Sustainability reporting should be adopted by all companies, especially the larger ones so that the transparency of companies can also increase and shareholders will be more satisfied and gain more confidence in the market.