ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to examine a moderating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the relationship between internationalization and systematic risk in the US restaurant industry context. While much of the strategic and financial management literature have devoted substantial attention to systematic risk associated with internationalization and CSR, separately, this study will add value to the literature by investigating the interaction effect of the two strategies. In addition, this study further expands the hypothesis development and the analysis by dividing aggregate CSR activities into positive CSR activities (PCSR) and negative CSR activities (NCSR) to investigate different moderating effects of the two CSR dimensions with theoretical and literature backgrounds of the real option theory, the cue-diagnosticity, and the degree of intimacy in terms of the positivity effect.