 The State as a Catalyst: How Government-Initiated Social Program Boosts Firm Performance?Ziqiao Wang, Wei Zhang, Jing Hao and Xiaotao Zhang Economic Analysis and Policy, 2025, vol. 87, issue C, 1501-1521 Abstract: With the growing complexity of institutional environments, firms strategically develop their social responsibility initiatives to meet the evolving demands of societal and political stakeholders. This study examines the impact of a government-initiated corporate social responsibility (CSR) program on firm performance under the setting of firms’ voluntary participation in the Targeted Poverty Alleviation (TPA) program in China. We find that TPA participation significantly improves firm performance by enhancing social visibility and promoting corporate productivity. Moreover, heterogeneity tests reveal that the impact is more pronounced among firms with weaker social images and greater resource constraints. This study contributes to non-market strategy research by illustrating the beneficial role of aligning CSR concerns with government expectations in securing legitimacy and optimizing resource integration. Keywords: Non-market strategy; Corporate social responsibility; Targeted poverty alleviation; Firm performance (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:87:y:2025:i:c:p:1501-1521 DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2025.07.009 Access Statistics for this article Economic Analysis and Policy is currently edited by Clevo Wilson More articles in Economic Analysis and Policy from Elsevier |
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