OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF LISTED MANUFACTURING FIRMS IN NIGERIA: A MODERATING EFFECT OF FINANCIAL LEVERAGE

ABSTRACT Prior studies that investigated the factors that influence corporate social responsibility (CSR) pay less attention to the effect of ownership structure and firm leverages. This study examined data of the listed manufacturing companies and provided empirical evidence on the influence of ownership structure on the CSR. The study further examined the moderating role of the firm leverages on the relationship between the ownership structure and CSR. Five year’s data are used in analyzing the relationship between ownership structure and corporate social responsibility. The population of the study consist of fifty-nine (59) manufacturing firms and out of which a sample of fifty-six (56) firms were used after meeting the sample selection criteria. Four variables were used for ownership structure and firm leverage was used as the moderating variable. The study adopts both descriptive statistics to explain the nature of the study variables and multiple regression techniques in testing the research hypotheses. While the results of the direct effects are not statistically significant, the indirect results show that firm leverage negatively moderates the relationship between ownership structure (proxy by the managerial, institutional, block and foreign ownerships). This study concludes that firm stakeholders (managers, institutional and foreign investors) use leverages to avoid engaging in the CSR. The study recommends that Stakeholders (particularly the managers) that have shares in the companies should shun using leverage to avoid giving back to communities the corporate social responsibility as such action could have adverse to the company in the long run in terms of it expenditures.