This dissertation explores the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices on the firm and contributes to an understanding of how CSR practices can contribute to companies’ competitive advantage. In Chapter 1, I use three randomized field experiments implemented in online labor marketplaces to provide causal evidence of the effect of CSR on employee outcomes that have been shown to be critical to firm performance: salary requirements and employee performance. Workers were recruited for short-term jobs and I manipulated whether or not they received information about the employer’s CSR program. I then observed the payment workers were willing to accept for the job and their performance on the job. Surveys administered at the end of the experiments gauging workers’ perceptions about the received CSR information also provide insight into the distinct mechanisms through which CSR affects the different employee outcomes. This paper contributes to an understanding of how CSR adds value to the firm and highlights the role of the employee in explaining this relationship. It also demonstrates how online labor markets can be used as settings for field experimental research in strategic management more broadly.

In Chapter 2, we examine pro bono work in the legal services industry. Using a screening model we show that law firms use pro bono engagements to gain information about associates’ expected productivity as an equity partner. Using a dataset of the top 200 US law firms in 2010 we demonstrate empirical support for our model’s predictions. Our findings thus suggest that the conventional wisdom that CSR practices are used to provide information about the quality of the firm to the employee is backwards; rather, we find that pro bono engagements are used to provide information about the quality of the employee to the firm.

In Chapter 3, we explore what drives firms to combine poor environmental performance with communication about positive environmental performance, resulting in “greenwashing”. Although some explanation of firm greenwashing has been put forth, a comprehensive analysis of the determinants of firm greenwashing is lacking. Drawing from existing work in management, strategy, sociology and psychology, we propose a comprehensive framework that examines the external (both institutional and market), organizational and individual drivers of greenwashing and then use this framework to develop recommendations for managers, policymakers, and NGOs to decrease greenwashing.