External tournament incentives and corporate social irresponsibility
研究外部锦标赛激励如何促使CEO通过增加企业社会不负责任行为来提升短期业绩，并发现良好的外部治理机制（如卖空压力、市场化程度和社会信任）能削弱这一效应。
Abstract We integrate the perspectives of tournament and agency theories to examine whether, how, and when external tournament incentives influence firms' corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). Using data on Chinese listed companies from 2003 to 2020, we show that external tournament incentives positively affect firms' CSI. Essentially, CEOs can use CSI to rapidly improve the firm's short‐term performance and thus increase their chances of winning external tournaments. Therefore, CEOs have an incentive to push companies to implement more CSI in response to external tournament incentives. Meanwhile, we find that good external corporate governance mechanisms (short‐selling pressure, marketization, and social trust) inhibit CEOs' opportunistic tendency to use CSI in response to external tournament incentives, thus attenuating the positive impact of external tournament incentives on CSI. This study extends the literature on external tournament incentives and CSI and provides important insights for shareholders and policymakers to effectively curb CSI.