Defined benefit pension policies and social responsibility performance: do socially responsible firms walk the talk?

Purpose - This study aims to examine whether socially responsible firms have well-funded employee pension programs and whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance is associated with management discretionary choice of pension accounting assumptions. Design/methodology/approach - The current study examines the impact of CSR performance on two measures of pension funding and two pension accounting assumptions using regression analysis. This study uses a panel data of 13,099 firms-years across 1,428 US firms from 1992 to 2015. Findings - Firms with higher CSR scores report higher pension net assets and are less likely to have underfunded pension than their counterparts. These firms also adopt more responsible (conservative) pension accounting assumptions (i.e. lower discount rate and a higher rate of compensation increase) to estimate pension benefit obligations. Results are stronger for firms that operate in the materials and industrial sectors and for the post-2000 period when underfunded pension has become more prevalent. Firms with higher CSR scores are also less likely to have a pension freeze. Originality/value - This study examines the signaling role of CSR by using the signaling theory to explain how senders view the signaling process as a channel to build their reputation and the correspondent inference theory to explain how receivers process and assess the signal. It provides evidence that the signal provided by CSR score is reliable in assessing firms’ commitment to non-investing stakeholders, such as employees, providing valuable information for potential employees making career decisions and for managers considering employee pension as part of corporate strategies to attract high quality workforce. This study provides inputs for public accountants providing assurance services that CSR performance has a significant impact on management reporting choices. This study also provides evidence that CSR could be considered a private provision of public goods that internalize the negative externality of the prevalent underfunded pension phenomenon.