Assessing Corporate Social Responsibility Efficiency for the International Food and Beverage Manufacturing Industry

Abstract

One of the major challenges in the research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the aggregation of the CSR metrics into overall measures of CSR practices by firms. This paper computes composite indicators of CSR from an efficiency perspective using data envelopment analysis (DEA) for a sample of international food and beverage manufacturing firms over the period 2011-2018. The study’s contributions to the literature are twofold. First, this paper contributes by being the first to compare efficiency in CSR practices of food and beverage companies across regions of Europe, the United States and Canada, Latin America and Caribbean and Asia-Pacific. Second, methodologically we extend the composite indicators within DEA, allowing for non-convexities of the production set. The study finds a considerable potential for improvement in CSR practices as revealed by the values of CSR composite indicators. The study also shows the differences in CSR efficiency between food and beverage firms in the regions considered, with the most CSR efficient region being Latin America and Caribbean, and the least CSR efficient being firms in Asia-Pacific region. The CSR composite scores fluctuate over the analyzed period, with an increase in efficiency in 2018 experienced by all regions.