Exploring the Roles of Corporate Social Responsibility and Artificial Intelligence Adoption in the Impact of Political Connections on Innovation Performance

Mingming Yao and Mengdan Xu ()
Additional contact information
Mingming Yao: School of Marxism, Research Center for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310023, China
Mengdan Xu: School of Marxism, Research Center for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310023, China

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 17, 1-19

Abstract: With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), how firms can better fulfill corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the context of AI and the role of CSR in firms have attracted increasing attention. This study explored the role of CSR and AI adoption in the impact of political connections on innovation performance. Using a sample of 269 Chinese private firms, it found that CSR mediated the positive relationship between political connections and innovation performance. AI adoption positively moderates the facilitating effects of political connections on CSR and CSR on innovation performance. The findings of the study not only investigate the mechanism through which unique political connections (the establishment of Party organizations in firms) in Chinese private firms, viewed from a CSR perspective, influence innovation but also explore the moderating role of AI in this mechanism, suggesting that AI can enhance the positive impact of political connections on innovation via CSR.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility; artificial intelligence adoption; innovation performance; political connections (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/17/7883/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/17/7883/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:17:p:7883-:d:1739936

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().