The Office of Graduate Administration is pleased to announce that Mehdi Aghajohnpour Pasha will be defending their thesis as a candidate for the degree Master of Science in Business Administration.

You are encouraged to attend the defence. The details of the defence and how to attend are included below:

DATE: 27 March, 2024

TIME: 1:00 PM (PT)

DEFENCE MODE: HYBRID - In-person and Remotely via Zoom

In-Person Attendance: Senate Chambers, UNBC Prince George Campus

 Please contact the Office of Graduate Administration for information regarding remote/online attendance. 

To ensure the defence proceeds with no interruptions, please mute your audio and video on entry and do not inadvertently share your screen. The meeting will be locked to entry 5 minutes after it begins: ensure you are on time.

THESIS ENTITLED: INVESTIGATING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND FIRM’S FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE AND THE MODERATING EFFECT OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE: EVIDENCE FROM U.S FIRMS

ABSTRACT: Many studies have examined the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and a firm’s financial performance. These investigations have had mixed results. Some studies find a positive relationship, others find a negative relationship, and yet some studies find no significant relationship. This ambiguity highlights the complexity of the relationship between CSR initiatives and firm performance. The present study attempts to better understand this relationship. As such, it has two objectives. Since most of the previous studies have examined a linear relationship between CSR and a company's financial performance, the first objective of this study is to investigate whether there is any nonlinear relationship between CSR and firm’s financial performance. The second objective of this study is to examine the moderating effects of corporate governance factors, especially the board of directors’ characteristics such as board size, board independence, board gender diversity, and CEO duality on the relationship between CSR and a firm’s financial performance. The latter factors have not been fully considered in previous studies as the focus has been on the direct link between CSR and the firm’s financial performance. The study uses panel data from a sample of 82 firms from a large group of public American firms, which are listed on the U.S. stock exchange and are part of the S&P 500 index covering the years 2012-2021, and a nonlinear panel regression model to estimate the relationship between firm’s financial performance as measured by Return on Asset (ROA) and CSR along with control variable and four Corporate Governance indicators and their interactions with CSR. The study finds a non-linear positive relationship between firm’s performance and CSR, suggesting a declining effect of CSR on firm’s performance at higher levels of CSR. It also finds that board gender diversity positively moderates the relationship between CSR and a firm’s financial performance. We find no statistically significant interactions between CSR and the Governance indicators of board size, board independence and CEO duality

COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP:

Chair: Dr. Mamdouh Shubair, University of Northern British Columbia

Examining Committee Members:

Supervisor: Dr. Jalil Safaei, University of Northern British Columbia

Co-Supervisor: Dr. Chengbo Fu, University of Northern British Columbia

Committee Member: Dr. Liam Kelly, University of Northern British Columbia

External Examiner: Dr.Waqar Haque, University of Northern British Columbia