Stakeholders and the stock price crash risk: What matters in corporate social performance?

This study provides evidence for the differential impacts of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives targeting different stakeholder groups on stock price crash risk. In particular, it highlights CSR's role in mitigating risk and creating shareholder value. Our results reveal that managerial bad news hoarding and the resultant stock crashes are largely determined by the social CSR dimension, and this effect is predominantly seen in undervalued firms. Moreover, social CSR subcategories aimed at specific stakeholder groups (such as the community, employees, or customers) tend to mitigate future crashes. In contrast, firms' environmental initiatives and governance characteristics seem to have trivial effects on stock crashes. Using a quasi-natural experiment, we find that the mitigating effect of social CSR dimension on crash risk is likely to be causal.