Determinants of LGBTQ+ Corporate Policies

We study the determinants of firms’ LGBTQ+policies and their relation to general CSR policies. Common factors explain LGBTQ+policies related to firms’ primary stakeholders and those aimed at public LGBTQ+efforts: younger firms, those with more financial resources, more educated workforces, catering to retail customers, and located in liberal areas have more LGBTQ+-friendly policies. LGBTQ+initiatives encounter less societal agreement than CSR initiatives. Illustrating the distinctiveness of LGBTQ+issues in the CSR space, we find that firms’ LGBTQ+friendliness only weakly correlates with overall CSR performance. Lastly, we show that firms’ LGBTQ+policies respond to pressure from shareholder proposals. (JELG32, G34, G38)