Unlocking Value: Exploring the Role of Intellectual Capital in CSR and the Financial Performance of Philippine-Listed Companies

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Provides moderation evidence of intellectual capital on CSR-financial performance link in an emerging market setting.

🏢実務担当者:CSR managers should align CSR initiatives with internal resource capabilities to mitigate short-term costs.

This study examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance (FP), measured by return on equity (ROE), and evaluates the moderating role of intellectual capital components, human capital efficiency (HCE), structural capital efficiency (SCE), and capital employed efficiency (CEE), in Philippine-listed firms. A longitudinal panel design was employed using 138 firm-year observations from Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEi) companies from 2019 to 2024. CSR was measured through an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) disclosure index based on sustainability and governance reports. Intellectual capital (IC) was operationalized using the value-added intellectual capital (VAIC) framework. Hierarchical moderated panel regression was conducted, with robustness checks using fixed- and random-effects models, Hausman tests, and cluster-robust standard errors. CSR shows a negative but non-robust association with ROE, indicating short-term cost implications in an emerging market context. Among IC components, although CEE exhibited the largest interaction effect in the pooled regression models, its moderating effect was not supported by the panel robustness analyses. HCE shows a positive but less stable effect, while SCE is not significant. Moderation results are limited; HCE weakens the negative CSR–ROE relationship in baseline models but loses significance under robust estimation. CEE shows inconsistent moderation, and SCE has no moderating effect. Disaggregated analysis indicates that environmental and social disclosure dimensions drive the negative association between ESG disclosure and ROE., whereas governance is neutral to slightly positive. Firms should align CSR with resource capabilities, emphasizing capital efficiency and human capital to mitigate costs. Policymakers should support firms beyond disclosure mandates. This study provides longitudinal evidence from an emerging market, showing that CSR value is conditional on resource efficiency rather than inherently beneficial.

• semanticscholar https://doi.org/10.3390/su18147326first seen 2026-07-23 06:16:23