Kang and Kim (2013)

Kang, Jingoo, and Y. Han (Andy) Kim.  “The Impact of Media on Corporate Social Responsibility.”  Working paper (Korea University), June 29, 2013.

From the authors’ abstract: After receiving tremendous public criticism due in part to the provocative media portrayal of its CEO…Goldman Sachs jumped up to rank #2 in terms of the dollar amount spent on philanthropic contributions in 2010 by more than quadrupling. The observation prompts us to ask the question: Should a firm invest more in corporate social responsibility (CSR)…in response to negative public opinion about the company? Using textual analysis of one million news articles about the largest 100 firms in the US…over 2000~2010, we find that firms strengthen their CSR performance and spend more…when the tone of the CSR news is more negative… In further analysis, we find that negative media coverage about CSR news chases customers away.”

Link: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2287002