• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.255-268
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• 2017

This study examines whether firms with tax avoidance of Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) performance is tempered by the extent firms engage in CEO turnovers. Considering the increasing interest in CSR activities of the firm to secure sustainable growth of national economy, this paper investigates the benefit and cost of CSR activities by combining the agency theory using the firm level data. Prior studies document that investors positively value tax avoidance. The rationale for this finding is that tax avoidance provides cash savings that can be used by firm managers to generate future shareholder wealth. Prior studies also show that investors' valuations are sensitive to the risk of future negative tax outcomes. Assuming that many types of CSR performances are low risk, low yielding uses of firm resources, we posit that higher levels of CSR performance may signal to investors that cash generated via tax avoidance has not been fully used to generate a return sufficient to offset the risk associated with aggressive tax planning strategies. Consistent with this argument, we predict and find that the positive association between CSR performance and tax avoidance is significantly weakened when firms have higher positive levels of CEO turnovers. Further, we predict and find that 'philanthropic' types of CSR activities in particular are associated with investor discounting of tax avoidance. We interpret our results as suggesting the equity market views CSR activities to be ostensibly funded through cash savings generated via tax avoidance.