Built to Last? Corporate Social Responsibility and the Longevity of Firms

This study examines whether corporate social responsibility contributes to firm longevity by strengthening organizational resilience, stakeholder support, and legitimacy. While prior research has linked firm survival to factors such as age, size, profitability, and financial condition, less is known about whether CSR helps organizations endure over time. The study will use a longitudinal panel constructed by merging Refinitiv CSR data with Compustat financial information and firm deletion records.

The empirical analysis will distinguish among broad deletion, adverse deletion, and bankruptcy/liquidation events. Logit and probit models will estimate whether lagged CSR predicts whether a firm-year falls within three-, five-, or ten-year windows preceding deletion. Cox proportional hazards models will then examine whether CSR is associated with the timing and hazard of firm exit. The models will include financial controls, industry and year effects, clustered standard errors, and additional robustness tests using alternative measures of distress and organizational exit. By separating general deletion from severe financial failure, the study aims to clarify whether CSR functions as a broad resilience resource or whether its influence is limited when firms face terminal financial distress.