A Research On Corporate Social Responsibility Imitation And Its Effect On Firm Performance

With the development of global corporate social responsibility(CSR)compaign,CSR has become an important strategic behavior of an enterprise.Based on new institutional theory,this thesis approaches the mimetic phenomenon of CSR behaviour in China from external legitimacy mechanism and internal efficiency mechanism.Taking 1085 observed values as sample from 217 Chinese A-share companies ranging from 2010 to 2014 and using the combination of theoretical and empirical analysis method,the results show that CSR behaviour homogeneity in China pertains to mimetic isomorphism.Facing external policy uncertainty.market uncertainty,and result uncertainty,CSR behaviour in China imitate similar organizations,not successful organizations.Moreover,the mimetic behaviour is moderated by size and ownership concentration.The bigger the size,the stronger the supervision from the public,and thus the more legitimacy pressure from the public,the stronger the effect of similar organization's CSR on the organization.The higher the ownership concentration,the stronger supervision from the shareholders,and thus the more legitimacy pressure from the shareholders,the stronger the effect of similar organization's CSR on the organization.Besides,CSR has a negative effect on the short-term corporate financial performance(CFP)and a positive effect on the corporate marketing performance(TobinQ).Successful-firm market density,which means more successful-firm imitation,has a positive moderate effect on the relationship between CSR and firm performance.Because successful-firm imitation helps to handle uncertainty and gain legitimacy,and thus do good to firm performance.However,similar-firm market density doesn't have significant positive moderate effect on the relationship between CSR and corporate financial performance(CFP),even negative moderate effect on the relationship between CSR and corporate marketing performance(TobinQ).Thus,this thesis explores the reason behind and finds out that,the higher the similar-firm market density,the more fierce competition the firm faces,and the firm would be more likely to arrange the resources in the place where it could get competitive advantage more quickly.And also,to win competition,the firm may adopt differentiation strategy and have adverse effect on imitation.In other words,within the same organization field,firms with higher similar-firm market density don't necessarily imitate similar firms more,even imitate less for efficiency consideration.The research extends previous research on CSR imitation,not only focus on imitation itself,but also its effect on firm performance,which has great theoretical and practical significance.