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Having checked the related news report for both CSR and non-CSR firms around the
award announcement dates, we find some interesting cases.
16
For example, we find that
non-CSR firms submit more than one news release in the week prior to the CSR award
announcement date, with these news releases predominantly introducing the board, the
story of the firm and its employee welfare, as opposed to any announcements of operating
performance or bullish/bearish news. This again implies that these firms may be
attempting to use the media to embellish their image and impress their stakeholders prior
to the announcement of CSR awards.
Since CSR awards signify a good reputation, ultimately improving the corporate
image of a firm, the media is an ideal channel to deliver this signal to stakeholders. A
better media reputation provides a deeper impression on market participants with regard to
the activities of CSR winners, thereby resulting in better stock market performance;
however, as already argued in this study, non-CSR firms may well try to enhance their
media coverage by actively releasing more optimistic information. Although detailed
information in news reports includes the date, title, name of the reporter, content and
edition, it may be unclear whether the news is published by a reporter or released by the
firm itself; however, the media reports used in the present study include both professional
(Commercial Times and Economic Daily News) and general (China Times and United
Evening News) reports; thus, the sources reflect various types of news from multiple
media channels. As noted by Kothari et al. (2009), firms can attempt to manipulate the
timing of information releases, and the media may be directly affected in such situations,
which suggests that there is also the possibility that news released by the media have been
manipulated.
We argue that the media will readily present information relating to a firm if the news
is considered worthy of reporting. We therefore also suggest that future studies may
consider the sources of the news reports (that is, whether such reports are obtained from
journalists or page one of newspapers) in order to further identify the potential impacts of
media reporting on firm performance.
16 For space limitation reasons, we illustrate only the characteristics here as opposed to providing the full
report.