Date of Conferral

2017

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Management

Advisor

Steven C. Tippins

Abstract

Stockholders invest billions of dollars in the purchase of new corporate coffee stock while producers of these commodities exist in poverty of developing nations. Corporate managers may miss the opportunities for offering humanitarian aid if potential stockholders do not know of corporate social change initiatives. Little research in the influence of socially conscious initiatives exists in the coffee sector and none concentrating on socially conscious initiative announcements. If a relationship exists between socially conscious initiative announcements and stock investments, then managers could justify funding social change initiatives. This quantitative study used a 5 day pre and post event study methodology including t tests, ANOVAs, and regressions examining five companies with 138 individual announcements from 5 coffee companies between 2011 and 2015. The independent variables were socially conscious initiative announcements regarding separate initiatives in the Wall Street Journal and differing socially conscious initiatives in the Washington Post. The dependent variables were abnormal changes in the Standard and Poor coffee corporate closing prices. This study used the Weighted Average Cost of Capital, the Capital Asset Pricing Model, and the Fama-French 3 Factors Model to demonstrate abnormal positive stock abnormalities. resulting in statistically significant positive findings pre and post publication in the five companies examined. Further research could use different time periods or media outlets. Similar findings could support advantages for investors and managers for aiding struggling coffee producers enticing other corporations to follow suit leading to beneficial worldwide social good development.

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