Kindness or hypocrisy: political mindset and corporate social responsibility decoupling in Chinese firms
研究中国高管政治心态对企业社会责任的影响，发现晋升导向高管发布更多实质性报告但社会贡献低，意识形态导向高管则真正促进社会贡献。
This study examines the effects of executives’ political mindsets on their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which has corporate and societal implications. We focus on the Chinese market, where political connections shape business activities. We find that executives with a promotion or ideology-oriented mindset issue more substantive CSR reports than their peers. However, only executives with ideology-oriented mindsets contribute to society, whereas promotion-oriented executives are associated with lower societal impact. This ‘CSR decoupling' also manifests itself in firms’ CSR activities. Chairpersons with political connections are more likely to pursue financial performance at the expense of societal contributions than their unconnected peers. In contrast, chairpersons with party membership are less likely to do so than their unaffiliated peers. Lastly, this paper shows that executives’ political perception affects the relationship between political mindset and CSR.