Robert Salomon, Stern Professor and NEC Faculty Fellow of International Management as well as Vice Dean, Dean of Executive Programs, was awarded the "Bright Idea Award" sponsored by the Stillman School of Business at Seton Hall University for his study "Have You Been Served? Extending the Relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility and Lawsuits," co-authored with Michael L. Barnett and Julia Hartmann.

Abstract: "Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been shown to provide insurance-like protection that buffers firms from losses when they are sued. But does CSR also buffer firms from being sued? We conduct a study of 408 U.S. firms over the period 2002–2011 and find that, indeed, firms with greater CSR were less likely to be sued. Yet, despite suffering fewer lawsuits, we also find that firms with greater CSR were more likely to set aside provisions for litigation. Together, these findings suggest that CSR’s buffering benefits may extend beyond just helping firms to suffer less harm from negative events, to include helping to protect firms from suffering negative events in the first place. Moreover, high-CSR firm’s tendency toward transparency may be what drives the extension of these protective benefits. We call for more research on the scope and conditions under which CSR buffers firms from harm."

Click here to view the article in the Academy of Management Discoveries.