**4.2 Correlation matrix**

**Table 3** shows the Pearson correlation matrix. All correlation coefficient are less than the acceptable limit (0.5). Therefore, there are no multicoliniarity problems in our study.

The correlation coefficient shows that visibility has a high positive correlation with CSR variable at a significance level of 5%. This is can be in accordance with the hypothesis that more visibility should create incentives for a firm to engage in social initiatives and to divulgate their social performance and is additionally in line with the results of previous researches [62, 77, 78]. There is also a significant positive correlation between visibility and firm age. This is expected as old firms should have more visibility and access to media. Visibility also has strong correlations with R&D intensity [72, 79]. In fine, significant correlation was reported between CSR and firm leverage in our sample. This is consistent with the literature up to this point which has supported a strong positive correlation between leverage and CSR [80]. Indeed, firms that participate in more CSR initiatives are more likely to be less leveraged. This is often expected as firms that are highly leveraged should find it tougher to participate in "non-essential" spending [34].

#### **4.3 Multivariate regression analysis**

The main objective of this research was to study the link between CSR and FFP and the moderating effect of firm visibility on CSR and firm performance relationship. **Table 4** presents the results. The findings of the first model demonstrate that CSR have a positive and significant relationship with firm performance. Our first


*The superscripts* **\****,* **\*\*** *and* **\*\*\*** *indicate significance at the 5%, 1% and 0.01% levels, respectively.*

**Table 3.** *Pearson correlation matrix.*


#### **Table 4.**

*Multivariate regression analysis.*

hypothesis H1 is accepted. These findings are in line with previous studies [81–83] which have determined that greater CSR activities enhance firm performance.

With the second model, we employed Aguinis's [84] Moderate Multiple Regression (MMR) model by creating a new variable (product between the two predictors). The effect of interaction variable (CSR × VBL) is positive on firm performance (coef. 0.0137, p-value = 0.022) and significant at 5 percent level. Our second hypothesis H2 is accepted which suggests that firm visibility moderates the link between CSR and FFP. This indicates that as a firm is more visible, the positive effect of CSR on ROA becomes stronger. Thus, increased visibility would encourage more commitment and disclosure of societal achievements that can be valued by stakeholders and leading to better financial performance. Our results are also supported by Park [85] who demonstrated that visibility moderates the correlation between CSR and reputation, which mediates the CSR-FFP relationship in the long run. These results are also in accordance with those of Madsen and Rodgers [86] who underlined the role of firm visibility and "stakeholder attention" when studying CSR-FFP link.

Regarding the control variables, firm leverage was found to be negatively and significantly related to firm performance in both models. This finding is congruent with that observed in researchers carried out in the same context (see, for example, [87]).

Firm size has negative and statistically significant effect on firm performance within the two models at a 5 percent level. The results are in line with those of prior studies [88, 89]. Finally, the coefficients of firm age and R&D intensity are negative but not significant.

#### **5. Conclusion**

Over the past decades there has been growing interest, both in academic literature and within the business world, in CSR and its impact on the actions and results of companies. The empirical research carried out to date does not seem to be sufficient to draw a stable and definitive conclusion about the existence, direction and stability of CSR-FFP link, to give for investigations about contingent variables which could affect this relationship. In this research, we essentially mobilized

#### *The Moderating Effect of Firm Visibility on the Corporate Social Responsibility-Firm Financial… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.95861*

legitimacy theory to advance that the firm's response to several pressures exerted thereon by the various stakeholders could vary consistently with its degree of visibility and therefore the attention given by the community. The empirical validation on a sample of large French firms allowed us to conclude that visibility plays the role of a positive moderator on the link between CSR and financial performance. Indeed, we have demonstrated the existence of a positive and significant relationship between ESG scores (CSR measure) and the return on assets (firm financial performance measure) to validate our first hypothesis. Likewise, we have demonstrated the existence of a positive relationship between visibility level and CSR to argue that visibility increases the company's exposure to implicit complaints can therefore lead to higher CSR. This study showed significant positive relationships between visibility and CSR demonstrated by correlation and multivariate analyzes.

This research also made for an interesting finding that might be the topic of further investigations: the chosen visibility indicator has a significant positive relationship with the ESG scores. This observation is in step with that revealed by other studies carried out in other contexts [85, 90, 91]. French companies with high visibility seem to support CSR issues to manage social expectations and reinforce their legitimacy. These results match in particular with what was revealed by Aouadi and Marsat [92] who found that ESG scores are positively related to company value for highly visible companies after using a large sample of over 4,000 companies from 58 countries between 2002 and 2011.

The results of this study have practical implications; they can be interesting and useful for managers in their decision making since they indicate that decision makers should be aware of the importance of visibility to gain legitimacy. Indeed, this research shows that the visibility positively moderates the correlation between CSR and financial performance. This moderating effect would most likely be exerted through the firm's reputation, suggesting that companies should pay more attention to visibility when implementing and disclosing their CSR programs.

The main limitation of this study is related to the visibility metric, future research may well be inquisitive about further developing indicators for firm visibility measures based, for instance, on media coverage or on the interest given to the company by social networks or Internet search engines. Comparative studies with other countries would be possible. Finally, in this research, we used an overall ESG score; it would be interesting to perform the effect of specific ESG components on financial performance.
