The study looked at whether external assurance makes CSR reports more trustworthy. They found that having external assurance on CSR reports can increase their credibility. Companies with assured CSR reports were less likely to have future CSR-related misconduct. However, if a company had repeated misconduct, the credibility of their CSR reports didn't matter as much. This shows that external assurance can help make CSR reports more reliable, especially for companies that are new to misconduct.