Corporate Responsibility and ROA: Evidence from the Italian Stock Exchange

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to test the importance of the Corporate Social Responsibility factor on the ROA in a sample of newly listed companies on the Italian Stock Exchange. The study analyzes 84 IPOs listed at the Borsa Italiana in the period between 2009 and 2015. The authors want to test if there is an advantage in terms of better return on assets when companies consider the drafting of a sustainability report, the presence of environmental responsibility, the management of supplier relationships, the information transparency and fairness, versus those companies which are not seen as responsible in these areas. The authors want to test the relationship between ROA and ESG Corporate Responsibility factors using a unpaired t-tests. The statistical analysis shows that not all factors contribute to the improvement of performance in the newly listed companies, but it seems to have a greater ROA only the companies that take on responsibilities from an environmental perspective.