Department of Business Management, School of Economics and Business Administration, Chongqing University, Chongqing, People's Republic of China.
PLoS One. 2023 Mar 17;18(3):e0283183. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0283183. eCollection 2023.
The existing literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) drivers focuses on firm- and institution-level factors and rarely on the role of political incentives. Public officials control enormous resources in China, and their political incentives substantially shape certain firm behaviors. As CSR is one of the critical measures that the central government uses to evaluate the performance of local government, local officials have the incentive to channel firms into accomplishing their political goals. Correspondingly, local firms may strategically implement CSR to build a good relationship with local governments. This study investigates the impact of local officials' political incentives (measured by tenure) on firms' CSR. Using a panel of publicly listed Chinese firms covering 2009-2019, it documents a U-shaped effect of government officials' tenure on the CSR performance of firms within their jurisdiction. To wit, the firm's CSR decreases first and then increases with the growth of tenure. Moreover, this U-shaped effect will be strengthened in regions with a high priority of gross domestic product (GDP) growth and will be weakened in regions with good market development. In addition, there is no significant evidence that party officials' tenure affects firms' CSR. Overall, this study advances our understanding of the political determinants of CSR in emerging markets.
现有关于企业社会责任（CSR）驱动因素的文献主要关注公司和机构层面的因素，很少关注政治激励的作用。在中国，政府官员掌控着巨大的资源，他们的政治激励极大地影响了某些公司的行为。由于企业社会责任是中央政府用来评估地方政府绩效的关键措施之一，地方官员有激励引导企业实现其政治目标。相应地，地方企业可能会战略性地实施企业社会责任，与地方政府建立良好关系。本研究考察了地方官员的政治激励（以任期衡量）对企业社会责任的影响。利用涵盖 2009-2019 年的中国上市公司面板数据，本文记录了政府官员任期对其管辖范围内企业社会责任表现的 U 型影响。具体来说，企业的企业社会责任在任期增长的过程中先下降后上升。此外，这种 U 型效应在 GDP 增长优先级较高的地区会加强，而在市场发展良好的地区则会减弱。此外，没有证据表明党官员的任期会影响企业的企业社会责任。总的来说，本研究增进了我们对新兴市场企业社会责任的政治决定因素的理解。
