Abstract
The relationship between CSR practices and firm performances is a widely discussed and still open research topic. This paper is however to the best of our knowledge the first one to study the effects of the most important ethical third-party certification standard (i.e., SA8000) on performances and the factors affecting them. We analyse secondary longitudinal balance sheet data through event study and multiple regression methods. Our results show that SA8000 certification positively affects labour productivity and sales performances but has no significant effect on profitability. Furthermore, the relationship between SA8000 and profitability is moderated by the home country cultural features.