Companies led by CEOs with daughters spend 13 percent more of their net profits on corporate social responsibility than those with CEOs who don’t have daughters.
That’s the topline conclusion of a new study of nearly 400 of the largest publicly traded U. S. firms just released by the University of Miami School of Business Administration.
Other key findings:
.CEOs who have a daughter are “much more connected to the company’s impact on wider society.”
. Such attention to CSR commitments “add up to an extra $59.5 million in CSR per year on average per company.”
. “The most significant impact has to do with CSR issues related to diversity … whether companies provide childcare and flextime … [and] how women, minorities and the disabled are treated.”
The effect of CEOs having daughters was also articulated by Ms. Barbara Krumsiek, then CEO of Calvert Investments, in Business In Society interviews at the United Nations: “The earliest progress in CSR occurred in companies where CEOs had daughters.”
There are, of course, many indicators of a company’s degree of commitment to corporate social responsibility. However, Professor Henrik Cronqvist, co-author of the new study, offered this summary of its significance: “The findings could be important to a wide range of people including job seekers in search of a decent work/life balance, entrepreneurs researching potential investors and even non-profits looking for corporate partners.”