The mediating role of corporate social responsibility in good corporate governance and firm value relationship: evidence from European financial institutions

Purpose - This paper aims to investigate the direct and indirect links between good corporate governance (GCG) and firm value using corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a mediating variable. Design/methodology/approach - The data used in this research was collected from the Thomson Reuters Eikon ASSET4 database, involving 108 financial institutions belonging to 12 European countries listed on the stock exchange between 2007 and 2019. A multivariate linear regression analysis was conducted to test the hypotheses of this study. Findings - Our results show that GCG has a positive effect on the firm value and CSR practices. Interestingly, the results indicate that CSR positively influences firm value. The results also reveal that CSR partially mediates the relationship between GCG and firm value. Originality/value - This study contributes to the literature by providing evidence on how GCG increases firm value with the mediation mechanism of CSR in the link between GCG and firm value. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first research work documenting that GCG leads to better CSR, which ultimately results in increasing firm value of companies from the financial sector by bridging the information gap for this critical industry in the context of a developed market like Europe.