Business Strategy and Corporate Social Responsibility

Yuan Yuan (), Louise Yi Lu (), Gaoliang Tian () and Yangxin Yu ()
Additional contact information
Yuan Yuan: South China University of Technology
Louise Yi Lu: Australian National University
Gaoliang Tian: Xi’an Jiaotong University
Yangxin Yu: City University of Hong Kong

Journal of Business Ethics, 2020, vol. 162, issue 2, No 7, 359-377

Abstract: Abstract This study examines the relation between a firm’s business strategy and its corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance. Using a comprehensive measure of business strategy based on the Miles and Snow (Organizational strategy, structure, and process, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1978, Organizational strategy, structure, and process, Stanford University Press, Stanford 2003) theoretical framework, we find that firms following an innovation-oriented strategy (prospectors) are associated with better CSR performance than those following an efficiency-oriented strategy (defenders). Specifically, compared with defenders, prospectors engage in more socially responsible activities, fewer socially irresponsible activities, and perform better in both stakeholder- and third-party-related CSR areas. Taken together, our results suggest that business strategy is an important determinant of CSR performance. Prospectors take advantage of CSR, as their innovation-oriented strategy allows them not only to benefit more from CSR, but also to have more tolerance for the uncertainty, risk, and long time-horizon associated with CSR engagement.

Keywords: Business strategy; Corporate social responsibility; Long-term investment; Innovation leadership; Cost minimization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (45)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-018-3952-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:kap:jbuset:v:162:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s10551-018-3952-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-018-3952-9

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().