Social Impact Theory,Government Fiscal Revenue,and Corporate Charitable Donations

As an important part of society,enterprises fulfill their social responsibilities through charitable donations.Mencius said:"In success,one tries to let others be benefited".Corporate charitable donations have a long history in our country and have the role of the third distribution,making resources in various fields gradually tend to balance among different social groups.Corporate charitable donation decisions are affected by various factors.At the earliest,scholars mainly focused on the impact of internal factors such as corporate size,profitability,and asset-liability ratio on corporate charitable donations.In recent years,scholars have realized that companies are not individuals and external Environmental characteristics are also an important factor influencing corporate charitable donations.Social influence theory refers to the fact that individuals in society will be influenced by other people and things around them to make decisions or behaviors that are similar to others.This influence may be due to rational judgment or pressure from society.It can be defined as a rational herding effect or an irrational herding effect.Under my country’s cultural and economic background,companies may have a herd effect of charitable donations based on "face" culture or industrial agglomeration.At the same time,in recent years,the Chinese government has increased the degree of intervention in the performance of corporate social responsibilities.Therefore,the government also has an impact on corporate charitable donations.This paper selects the data of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2019,takes the ratio of donations of each company to the end of the period’s operating income as the explained variable,and the average donation level of other companies in the same province as the explanatory variable to measure social impact to establish a model for empirical purposes test.The empirical results found that the average donation level of other companies in the same province is significantly positively correlated with corporate donations,that is,the higher the average donation level of other companies in the same province,the higher the donation level of companies located in that province.Then,according to the unique political environment of our country,the adjustment variable of the government revenue of each province and municipality is further introduced into the model,as well as its crossover item with the average donation level of other enterprises in the same province.The regression analysis shows that the government revenue will be Weaken the positive impact of the average donation level of other companies in the same province on corporate charitable donations.The innovation of this article is to combine the herding effect and social influence theory of sociology with corporate charitable donation decision-making,and supplement the influencing factors of corporate charitable donations.From the perspective of corporate governance,it shows that external factors will affect corporate charitable donations,which will help managers make charitable donation decisions more rationally,truly integrate charitable donations into corporate strategic planning,and achieve a win-win situation for the recipients of donations and the company.From the perspective of government management,the government should improve the laws related to corporate donations,mobilize the enthusiasm of corporate charitable donations,create a good institutional environment,and make voluntary corporate donations the biggest motivation for corporate donations.