The Influence Mechanism Of Corporate Social Responsibility Conformity And Differentiation On Financial Performance

As China’s economy has entered a stage of high-quality development,corporate social responsibility has been promoted to a strategic height.Existing studies mostly focus on the impact of specific aspects of corporate social responsibility on corporate reputation and financial performance,without the impact of the overall characteristics of all aspects of corporate social responsibility.Based on the optimal differentiation theory,thesis explores whether enterprises adopt the strategy of keeping conformity with other enterprises or keeping differentiation from other enterprises in the industry when carrying out social responsibility,and whether different strategies can help enterprises improve their financial performance through media reputation.In addition,since corporate visibility can increase corporate exposure,the moderating effect of corporate visibility on the relationship between corporate social responsibility strategy and financial performance is also discussed.Secondary data were used to verify the research hypotheses.The data came from the information of China’s listed companies on the China Stock Market & Accounting Research Database and China Research Data Service platform from 2012 to 2018.Data analysis used Ucinet6.0,Excel and Stata15.0 software,in combination with social network analysis method,Ucinet6.0 and Excel were used to calculate the values of conformity and differentiation of corporate social responsibility.Then,correlation analysis,regression analysis and robustness test were performed on unbalanced panel data using Stata15.0.The results show that corporate social responsibility conformity has a positive impact on corporate media reputation and financial performance,corporate media reputation plays a complete mediating role between corporate social responsibility conformity and financial performance,and corporate visibility can enhance the positive impact of corporate social responsibility conformity on corporate media reputation.Corporate social responsibility differentiation has a positive impact on financial performance and a negative impact on corporate media reputation,so corporate media reputation has no mediating effect between corporate social responsibility differentiation and financial performance.In addition,corporate visibility can enhance the negative impact of corporate social responsibility differentiation on corporate media reputation.Finally,suggestions on corporate social responsibility implementation are provided from the perspective of government and enterprise management and social supervision to promote high-quality development of enterprises.