Abstract

The apparel and footwear industries are under constant scrutiny from environmental and consumer organization stakeholders regarding production in developing countries. Concerns include pollution, minimum wages, child labor, and factory safety standards. Companies in these industries are therefore very cognizant of social issues and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Given the rising emphasis of CSR and the importance of board governance, I examine the relation between corporate social performance (CSP) and attributes of the board of directors, company ownership, and board committees. Based on a sample of 65 apparel and footwear firms compared to a size-matched sample, I empirically test whether governance attributes are associated with CSP and whether the attributes associated with CSP differ for the apparel and footwear sample compared to the matched sample. Results suggest that while the governance attributes of the apparel and footwear firms do not vary significantly from the matched sample, the features associated with CSP differ between the samples. While size, institutional ownership and board committee attributes are significantly associated with CSP for the apparel and footwear firms, board of director expertise appear to be the main driver of CSP for the matched firms.