The environmental and social performance of firms and the impact of different types of institutional ownership: A French perspective

Abstract

This study investigates how institutional ownership affects the social and environmental performance of firms in France. We specifically examine the impact of pressure-resistant and pressure-sensitive investors. We utilize the taxonomy created by Brickley et al. (1988) to categorize the various institutional investors, and we distinguish between environmental performance (EP) and social performance (SP). Our findings align with agency theory, and we utilize a paradigm that considers the diversity of institutional investors’ choices based on their investment goals, time horizons, and characteristics. Our findings indicate that various forms of institutional investor ownership are associated with distinct aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance—both environmental and social; having investors who are resistant to pressure is linked to improved EP; and corporate ownership by pressure-sensitive institutional investors has no significant impact on the assessed aspects of CSR.