Introduction

One of the most successful global corporate sustainability initiatives is the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). The UNGC was launched in 2000 with the goal of bringing together the objectives of the international community and those of the business world. It is a voluntary corporate sustainability initiative that asks chief executives to align their day-to-day business operations with 10 universally accepted principles on human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption. By adopting these principles (see Table 1), the UN aims to promote ethical economic growth by ensuring that businesses drive globalization in ways that benefit economies and societies around the world (Schembera, 2018; Waddock, 2004). Arguably, the UNGC is the corporate social responsibility initiative with the largest number of adopters (Ortas et al., 2015; Orzes et al., 2018; Rasche et al., 2013).

There is a solid amount of research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and on the UNGC in particular (Orzes et al., 2018). Some studies define the UNGC as an initiative to diffuse the core values of the UN into the corporate world (Kell, 2013). And although it is broadly cataloged as a success (Thérien & Pouliot, 2006), the UNGC approach has received some criticisms (Williams, 2014). Some of its detractors argue that its membership is small and geographically concentrated (Bremer, 2008). Others find evidence that UNGC-firms fail to comply with the requirement of annual progress reports (Jastram & Klingenberg, 2018; Sethi & Schepers, 2014) and some even question the impact of UNGC-firms on their communities (Rasche et al., 2013).

There are also conflicting views whether firms should join or not the UNGC. For example, firms that join the UNGC instantly gain reputational benefits and increase their global projection (Janney et al., 2009). However, the same study finds that US firms suffer a negative market reaction for joining. Although the study looks only at short event windows, the results do raise the question of if, and when, it is a good time for a US firm to join this initiative. Also, by voluntarily joining the UNGC, firms are set to a higher standard of scrutiny as they are required to submit annual progress reports that might or might not include negative news that may otherwise have remained private (Janney et al., 2009). Critics argue that, because there are low barriers of entry and practically no enforcement of compliance, joining firms receive an ‘easy-pass’ to CSR prestige. On the other hand, those who still defend the virtues of the initiative claim that the UNGC provides a platform for the continuous improvement of firms. For example, Arevalo et al. (2013) find a positive correlation between UNGC adoption and costs savings and revenue growth. The same study finds, that the UNGC provides firms with an opportunity for improve their productivity. Garayar et al. (2012) report that the UNGC could serve as an open window for firms into other geographical markets. Barrese et al. (2020) provide compelling evidence in favor of UNGC backers.

Firms might also feel external pressures to join the UNGC and decide to join because it is more costly for them not to join. This pressure might come from activists (Lim & Tsutsui, 2012), competitors (Garayar et al., 2012), investors (Williams, 2014), and the media (Barkemeyer, 2009), among others.

Given that the decision to join the UNGC presents a balance between cost and benefits, in this study we examine the life-cycle stage at which public firms in the United State choose to voluntarily adopt the UNGC. The present study contributes to the bulk of knowledge of CSR given that this exploratory undertaking is not yet available in the CSR literature. Several studies do show that mature firms significantly invest more in CSR (Hasan & Habib, 2017; Trihermanto & Nainggolan, 2018).

Life cycle has been linked to a wide range of corporate variables. For example, signaling hypothesis (Meza et al., 2020), dividend policy (Trihermanto & Nainggolan, 2018), corporate social responsibility (Hasan & Habib, 2017; Withisuphankorn & Jirapor, 2016), age (DeAngelo et al., 2010), earned to contributed capital ratio (DeAngelo et al., 2006), assets growth (Grullon et al., 2002), as well as a multivariate ranking dividend payout ratio, sales growth, capital expenditure and age (Anthony & Ramesh, 1992). In the present study, we employ the composite proxy developed by Dickinson (2011) to capture firm-specific life cycle. Following Gort and Klepper (1982), life-cycle classification is accomplished by using a firm’s operating, investing, and financing cash flows in combination to assign life cycle stages (introductory, growth, maturity, shake-out, and decline). Dickinson’s (2011) study uses the proxy of a firm’s life cycle to analyze the explanatory power and time series’ effects on profitability. The study indicates that explanatory power of future profitability is increased by over 35% with the inclusion of life cycle information, even after controlling for the level and change in current profitability and growth in assets. She demonstrates the superiority of the cash flow pattern life cycle measure over other proxies used such as age, size, sales growth, capital expenditures, research and development, and dividend payments (e.g., Anthony & Ramesh, 1992; Black, 1998).

Data

In this study, we examine the life cycle stage at which the management of US public firms decide to join the voluntary corporate sustainability initiative known as the United Nations Global Compact. We follow Dickinson (2011) to establish the firm life cycle, which is based on the predicted behavior of operating, investing, and financing cash flow across different life cycle stages. To be included in the sample, a firm must have no missing (or the value is different to zero) values for operating, investing, and financing cash flow for any given year. Our analysis covers the period from 2000 (first year of the UNGC) to 2017. The list of publicly held firms affiliated to the UNGC is available from the UNGC website. Financial data on UNGC-firms come from Bloomberg, the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) and COMPUSTAT. Our sample is composed of 94 US-based firms that joined the UNGC during the study period and have all the financial data needed for determining their life cycle stage available in the aforementioned sources.

Table 2 shows the distribution of the 94 firms based on the year each joined the UNGC. As the table shows, the early years of the UNGC saw only a small number of US public firms joining this initiative. Membership took more traction later on with 11 and 12 firms joining in years 2015 and 2016 respectively. Table 3 shows that these firms trade their stock mostly in the NYSE (70 firms), followed by NASDAQ (22). Only two firms trade at the OTC. Finally, Table 4 presents the distribution of these firms into industry sectors. While the firms are fairly diversified amongst sectors, a good number of firms are from the Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology (10), Technology Hardware & Equipment (8), Food Producers (7), and Software & Computer Services (7). In the next section we present a brief description of the life cycle methodology.

Methodology

A good number of studies show that firms that join the UNGC face both costs and benefits. In this study, we examine the life cycle stage at which public firms in the United States choose to voluntarily adopt the UNGC. Our analysis runs from the beginning of the UNGC initiative until 2017. Our life cycle methodology is based on Dickinson (2011), which in turn employs Gort and Klepper’s (1982) classification of life cycle stages (introductory stages, growth stage, maturity stage, shake-out stage, and decline stage). These five life cycles stages can be further specified as: (1) introduction where an innovation is first produced; (2) growth where the number of producers increases dramatically; (3) maturity where the number of producers reaches a maximum; (4) shake-out where the number of producers begins to decline; and (5) decline where there is essentially a zero-net entry. Dickinson also uses Livnat and Zarowin’s (1990) decomposition of cash flows into operating, investing, and financing activities and how each differentially affects stock returns. These three cash flow types can take a positive or negative sign (according to economic theory) which results in 8 possible combinations. The combination between the cash flow pattern and economic theory (see Table 5) form the basis for the cash flow patterns proxy for a life cycle. A firm is discarded if any cash flow value is zero or missing. Table 6 displays each life cycle stage based on the patterns (determined by sign) of operating, investing, and financing cash flow. We use this procedure to classify firms, introductory stages, growth stage, maturity stage, shake-out, or decline in the year they join the UNGC.

This method of life cycle classification is also used by Hasan (2018), Lopatta et al. (2020), Meza et al. (2020), and Blomkvist et al. (2021).

Empirical Results

We determine the life cycle stage at which US firms decide to voluntarily join the UNGC. Our sample period goes from 2000 to 2017. We identify 94 firms with all the data available for a successful classification. We use the methods in Dickinson (2011) to determine if firms decide to join the UNGC in their introductory, growth, maturity, shake-out, or decline stage in the life cycle. Although many studies on the UNGC show that a firm’s decision to join or not is not trivial, we are not aware of any study similar to ours.

The results of the life cycle analysis on UNGC firms are shown in Table 7. We find that most firms join the UNGC at its Mature stage. The total number of mature firms in the sample is 56 – which is close to 60% of the sample. This result is consistent with the general understanding that, in comparison with firms in other life-cycle stages, mature firms invest more in CSR initiatives (Hasan & Habib, 2017; Trihermanto & Nainggolan, 2018; Withisuphankorn & Jirapor, 2016). The main argument for this evidence is that, as firms age their environmental and diversity awareness also grows.

The same number of firms (15) in the sample decided to join the UNGC when they were at the Growth or Shake-Out stage. Only 5 firms joined at the Introductory stage and fewer, just 3 firms, at the Decline stage joined the voluntary corporate responsibility initiative. These results indicate that most firms wait until their Mature stage to join the UNGC. This is not a surprise, since joining this corporate sustainability initiative not only brings recognition and value, it also brings extra costs and responsibilities. Mature firms are not only more aware of complying with CSR standards, they also are in a better position to assume the associated costs (Hasan & Habib, 2017; Trihermanto & Nainggolan, 2018).

Conclusion

The United Nations Global Compact is the largest voluntary corporate social responsibility initiative. The goal of the UNGC is to have firms adopt a set of corporate socially responsible global principles on human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption, and by doing so, promote ethical economic growth. Firms that join the UNGC gain instant recognition value, but also agree to be completely open about how they comply with these standards.

We tackle a research question that, to the best of our knowledge, is not yet addressed in the UNGC literature. At what life cycle stage firms decide to join the UNGC? To answer this question, we use the life cycle methodology of Dickinson (2011). We examine the life cycle stage at which public firms from the US decide to join the UNGC from the launch of the corporate socially responsible until 2017. The sample includes 94 firms. And we find that most firms join the UNGC in their mature stage. This result is in line with previous research that highlights the fact that firms in the mature stage are the ones investing more resources on CSR initiatives.

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