**4.1 Sample and data**

To test the effect of corporate innovation on the CSR scores, we conduct our study on the SBF 120 French companies. Thanks to the French Parliament enacted Grenelle Acts in 2010 large French companies have to communicate their CSR activities, which enable us to have a clearer view of the CSR strategies for these companies. Our panel data, which covers the period from 2010 to 2016, are collected from two main sources. The Bloomberg database was employed to measure the CSR through the ESG score and its components. Besides, we use the annual sectorial survey of the National Institute of Statistics and Economic studies to determine the corporate innovation through patents number.
