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<\/a><\/p>\nAbdul-Rahman Khokhar,<\/strong>\u00a0Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary\u2019s University, Halifax, Canada<\/em><\/p>\n Christine A. Panasian<\/strong>, Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary\u2019s University, Halifax, Canada<\/em><\/p>\nHesam Shahriari<\/strong>, College of Business, Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View, TX, United States<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Abstract:<\/strong><\/h3>\nWe build on the stakeholder theory and reputation literature to document an implicit benefit of firms\u2019 corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance through a novel channel\u2014the Comment Letter (CL) review process by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). We find that a firm\u2019s CSR performance is inversely related to the likelihood of receiving an SEC CL. Moreover, we document that for firms that receive a CL from the SEC, a higher CSR performance is associated with a less severe and less complex review process and, thus, lower associated costs of resolving the CL review. Our results are robust to a comprehensive list of firm-level controls, the inclusion of industry and state fixed effects, and the clustering of standard errors by firm and year. In addition, we show that the findings are robust to potential sample selection bias, alternative specifications and estimation methods, and other endogeneity concerns.<\/p>\n
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Keywords:<\/strong><\/h3>\nCorporate Social Responsibility; CSR Performance; Stakeholder Theory; Reputation; Trust; SEC Comment Letter Process; Disclosure Quality<\/p>\n
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Citation (APA):<\/strong><\/h3>\nKhokhar, A.-R., Panasian, C. A., & Shahriari, H. (2026). CSR performance and SEC comment letter review process. Multinational Finance Journal, 30(3), 41\u201378.<\/p>\n
Citation (Harvard):<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n
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Khokhar, A.-R., Panasian, C.A. and Shahriari, H., 2026. CSR performance and SEC comment letter review process. Multinational Finance Journal, 30(3), pp.41\u201378.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CSR Performance and SEC Comment Letter Review Process Multinational Finance Journal, 2026, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 41-78 Doi: 10.67454\/30-3-2 \u2013 an open-access journal article Abdul-Rahman Khokhar,\u00a0Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary\u2019s University, Halifax, Canada Christine A. Panasian, Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary\u2019s University, Halifax, Canada Hesam Shahriari, College of Business, Prairie View A&M […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":621,"featured_media":0,"parent":221,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2666","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.uwasa.fi\/mfjuva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2666"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.uwasa.fi\/mfjuva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.uwasa.fi\/mfjuva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.uwasa.fi\/mfjuva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/621"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.uwasa.fi\/mfjuva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2666"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.uwasa.fi\/mfjuva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2675,"href":"https:\/\/sites.uwasa.fi\/mfjuva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2666\/revisions\/2675"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.uwasa.fi\/mfjuva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.uwasa.fi\/mfjuva\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}