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The relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance: a moderate role of fintech technology

Abstract

This study explores the new area of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance in the context of the fintech technology. The fintech technology is currently a very interesting and growing area in the financial organization and how it affects financial performances in different dimensions of banking sector. This study investigates the linear and non-linear relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and banking performance (BP) by using the dataset of Chinese banks from 2009 to 2018. The results indicate that the interactive variable of CSR (GOV*SOC) shows insignificant influence on the returns on assets (ROA), returns on equity (ROE), and nominal interest margin profit (NIMP) from dependent variable. Moreover, the other CSR variable such as GOV*ENV significantly positively influences ROA and ROE. The square value of the GOV “governance disclosures scores” shows insignificant influence regarding ROA, ROE, and NIMP. Finally, the fintech technology (fintech) positively and significantly impacts on ROE and NIMP and positively but insignificantly affects on ROA in both linear and non-linear models of the study. This study is a roadmap for the financial firms to improve their sources through modern fintech technology regarding financial sector.

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Data availability

The data is available on request from corresponding author.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

All authors have contributed in this paper. However, A/Professor Yadong Liu has completed the “Methodology” section, while Dr. Sharjeel Saleem wrote the “Introduction” section, Dr. Rizwan Shabbir has written the “Literature review” section, Mr. Malik Shahzad has completed analysis part, Mr. Adil Irshad wrote the “Abstract” and “Conclusion and limitations” section, and Dr. Shahbaz Khan format the paper according to journal format and proof read the whole paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yadong Liu or Malik Shahzad Shabbir.

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Liu, Y., Saleem, S., Shabbir, R. et al. The relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance: a moderate role of fintech technology. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 20174–20187 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11822-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11822-9

Keywords

  • Corporate social responsibility
  • Fintech technology
  • Banking performance
  • Environmental disclosures
  • Chinese banking sector

JEL classification

  • D50
  • E11