**Abstract**

This research aims to analyze the role played by firm visibility in moderating the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Firm Financial Performance (FFP). Based on the legitimacy theory, a firm's responses to stakeholder's expectations would be affected by its public visibility; we hypothesize a positive link between CSR and firm visibility. Moreover, visibility is expected to moderate the CSR-FFP relationship. We applied a Moderated Regression Analysis using the aggregate ESG scores as a CSR proxy on a panel data of listed French Companies (SBF120) over the period 2008–2017. Our findings are in line with legitimacy theory, suggesting that social initiatives would be mean to strengthen the legitimacy and to secure "license to operate". Furthermore, firm visibility would be a contingency variable that moderates positively CSR-FFP relationship.

**Keywords:** corporate social responsibility (CSR), financial performance, firm visibility, legitimacy theory, SBF 120
