Governance and Corporate Philanthropy: Restraining Robin Hood?
研究发现大股东和机构投资者会限制企业慈善捐赠，表明高额捐赠可能被有影响力的股东视为过度，治理机制会加以约束。
Although corporate decision makers may justify charitable contributions on stra-tegic grounds, extremely large corporate philanthropic contributions may be per-ceived by shareholders as unnecessary. If stockholders attempt to limit corporate philanthropy, then governance mechanisms should put a cap on giving amounts. Using a matched-paired sample to control for industry and company size, the au-thors compared big givers and small givers. The authors find that blockholders and institutional owners limit corporate philanthropy. This suggests that high levels of corporate philanthropymay be perceived as excessive by influential stockholders, and some governance mechanisms act to curtail it. Corporate philanthropy is very common among large companies in the United States; indeed, society expects large companies to donate to wor-thy causes. Corporate philanthropy has been called the oldest form of cor-porate social performance (Mescon & Tilson, 1987) and constitutes a well-entrenched tradition among large firms (Useem, 1988). Although much of corporate philanthropy is institutionally driven (e.g., Handelman & Arnold, 1999), firms also have been encouraged to give strategically (Fry, Keim, & Meiners, 1982). For example, Smith (1994) asserted that giving programs can be designed to heighten brand-name recognition, enhance productivity of critical employees, improve corporate reputation among investors, mitigate regulatory scrutiny, and ensure community 319 AUTHORS’NOTE: Some of the findings of this studywere presented at theAcademy of