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Similar to other countries, Australian firms are increasingly using corporate foundations (CFs) to manage their philanthropic giving. While research has explored the global expansion of CFs, there has been limited understanding on why they are established. This study involving 16 Australian CF managers used qualitative thematic analysis to identify the following four motivational factors that most influence organizational establishment of CFs: 1) centralizing corporate giving; 2) stakeholder influences; 3) financial advantages of foundation structure; and 4) strategic benefits to the establishing firm. The results suggest most Australian firms establish CFs to undertake strategic philanthropy, assisting those in need while capitalizing on the legitimizing social benefits. Many also use it to market activities to their staff, thereby enhancing internal engagement and retention. Yet despite such positive benefits, there is rarely a reduction in principal-agency costs when using a structured CF controlled by corporate executives rather than ad-hoc corporate giving. Furthermore, the decision to establish a CF is often based on normative isomorphism (copying competitors). Additionally, no CFs were established for direct taxation benefits, rather most were focused on the tax benefits associated with employee giving and donations from the general public. The uniqueness of these results, compared with other research, suggests there could be differing motivations to establish CFs based on the organization and the environment of the country where it is located. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how natural catastrophes affect corporate philanthropic activities in China. Firms located in areas experiencing severe seismic losses increase charitable donations. The effect is stronger when firms demonstrate stronger social responsibility, operate in higher-mortality regions, and are led by female or elder CEOs, supporting the mortality salience hypothesis. We address endogeneity issues with an instrumental variable and a propensity score matching approaches. Furthermore, firms with higher charitable donations experience a more positive stock market reaction around the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake. Overall, our findings suggest that natural catastrophes amplify financial market participants' mortality salience and affect their economic decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop and test a multi‐stakeholder perspective of intrafamily CEO succession by exploring how family CEO successors affect post‐succession firm performance under conditions of sustainable human resource management (sustainable HRM) practices toward employees and top managers, as well as corporate philanthropic activities in the broader community. Using a sample of 414 CEO successions in family firms listed on China's stock exchanges during 2008–2016, we find an insurance‐like effect of both sustainable HRM and corporate philanthropy in enhancing firm performance of family CEO successors. Our results also show that firms with family CEO successors will outperform those with nonfamily counterparts under conditions of high employee compensation, low top management team (TMT) compensation, and long TMT tenure. Our findings suggest that sustainable HRM and corporate philanthropy complement rather than substitute in strengthening family leadership during CEO succession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the underexplored issue of whether or not activities of corporate philanthropy (CP) by foreign multinationals, which have been shown to positively influence global stakeholders, can also influence local consumers in developing countries in Asia. We survey how consumers in Myanmar and Vietnam perceive Chinese and Korean multinationals and their CP activities. The results indicate that CP has a fairly limited influence on purchase intentions of local consumers in these markets. The study found only indirect effects through corporate image for firms from China (unfavourable origin), However, neither direct nor indirect effects on purchase intentions were observed for Korean firms (favourable origin). Our findings suggest that, unlike in developed countries, local consumers may not be key stakeholders to consider in planning corporate-sponsored philanthropic activities in developing Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how entrepreneurs' social media usage affects corporate philanthropy. Departing from the extant literature, which focuses on the instrumental role of social media, we draw upon the normative perspective of stewardship theory and propose that entrepreneurs' social media usage promotes their ethical and prosocial motivation for corporate philanthropy. In particular, we theorize that entrepreneurs' social media usage enhances their self‐perceived status and philanthropic identification, thus affecting corporate philanthropy. Our analysis of a sample of Chinese ventures provides empirical support for the mediating effects of self‐perceived status and philanthropic identification on the relationship between entrepreneurs' social media usage and the philanthropic propensity and intensity of their ventures. Our study has implications for the role of social media in promoting corporate philanthropy and contributes to the literature on entrepreneurship and corporate philanthropy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to test a model examining the effects of philanthropic portfolio diversity in relation to firm performance. In particular, the authors assess organizational philanthropy portfolios targeted at diverse issue categories while also examining these effects when the organization also partners with a diverse range of stakeholder groups. Design/methodology/approach: The study leverages detailed company reports to collect, code and test a firm's philanthropic behaviors based on focal issues such as community, education, environment and others. The authors also collect and analyze data on the range, type and quantity of stakeholders targeted by a firm's philanthropic efforts. These philanthropic donations are then merged with financial data to examine the outcomes in a longitudinal analysis of over 2,000 firm-year observations. Findings: The findings suggest that organizations that make focused and targeted philanthropic donations over a more generalist and broad approach realize higher performance. Furthermore, the authors find that variation across stakeholder donation amounts enhances firm performance by strategically identifying and targeting relevant stakeholder needs. Originality/value: The present study expands on extant research to examine the performance implications associated with broad and general philanthropy versus targeted and narrow philanthropic efforts. Furthermore, the study provides support for a portfolio view of philanthropy to suggest organizations holistically assess, manage and leverage their efforts across issues and stakeholder groups. These findings provide additional insights into the complexities associated with corporate philanthropy portfolios while also discussing future research opportunities to enhance the outcomes associated with philanthropic activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a systematic literature review, this paper explores the motives for cooperation between nonprofit organizations (NPO) and companies as profit organizations (PO) in the context of cause-related marketing (CrM) partnerships. CrM is a marketing and fundraising tool which combines the purchase of products with a "good cause" and has already gained significant attention in theory and practice as a widespread practice of corporate social responsibility. However, research often focuses on specific aspects and primarily on the perspective of consumers (i.e., their purchase or support intentions), while only a few studies deal with the motives that NPO and PO pursue with such intersectoral collaboration. Overall, the findings indicate that research on the NPO's view is particularly limited and that CrM is generally based on a bundle of motives or (both financial and non-financial) goals, with the self-interested perspective of PO appearing to be dominant. The paper suggests several avenues for further research and advocates a stronger focus on fundamental questions that were raised decades ago but have not been adequately answered since the origins of CrM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate response to natural disaster in the forms of cash and/or in-kind donations (corporate philanthropic disaster response, or CPDR) is a growing form of corporate philanthropy. Through an event study methodology based on 1,775 firms listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, we analyze shareholder reaction to CPDR announcements after the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes in Japan. Controlling for the possibility that the most common explanations (buying goodwill and corporate governance) are at play, our results provide an empirical test of a little-explored explanation for the positive shareholder reaction to CPDR: namely, that corporate philanthropy is a market signal to outside investors of the firm's future financial prospects. We find this explanation to be significant. Of note are also the facts that shareholder reaction is only significantly positive in the case of cash donation (as opposed to in-kind), and is more positive when announced early. Overall, our results align with the "strategic philanthropy" view grounded in resource-dependence theory. But instead of the typical focus on non-financial stakeholders, we argue that philanthropic donations can be used to directly influence investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines how executive motivation and firm capability jointly influence corporate contribution to poverty alleviation. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms, we find that firms whose executives possess political connections or experienced poverty in childhood contribute more to poverty alleviation. Moreover, better-performing firms with politically connected executives make even more contributions, whereas firm performance does not affect the relationship between executives' childhood poverty experience and corporate contribution. We also document that the strength of political connections and the type of childhood poverty experience matter. Moreover, executive background and firm performance only affect corporations' cash contributions but do not influence their material contributions. Overall, our study reveals that corporate contribution to poverty alleviation is affected by both strategic and altruistic motives of executives and is subject to the influence of firm performance especially when executives are driven by political motives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates whether digital transformation promotes corporate philanthropy in the Chinese context. We find that corporate digital transformation enhances philanthropic giving and internal pay gap negatively moderates the effect. In addition, we validate the potential channels of decision-making and information transmission that digital transformation affects corporate philanthropy. Further testing shows that digital transformation has more positive effects on corporate philanthropy in high-level digitalized or social-trusted regions than in low-level counterparts. This study enriches our understanding of the impact mechanism of digital transformation on corporate philanthropic giving and provides a new theoretical perspective on the process of corporate philanthropy decision-making in the digital era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has long been debate about whether the motives for corporate philanthropy are selfish or altruistic in nature. This study takes A-share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges in China from 2016 to 2019 as the research object and analyzes China's new government–business relationship based on institutional theory. The results show that the new government–business relationship, which is characterized by being close and unsullied, has a significant inhibitory effect on corporate philanthropy. To be specific, the closer and more unsullied the government–business relationship in the region where the firm is located, the lower its level of corporate philanthropy, thus supporting the hypothesis of selfish—and especially political—motivation. A heterogeneity analysis shows that compared with private enterprises and enterprises in areas with high levels of marketization, the new government–business relationship has a less inhibitory effect on the philanthropic efforts of state-owned enterprises and enterprises in areas with lower levels of marketization. Conditional testing shows that the purpose of corporate philanthropy is to obtain more economic resources such as bank loans, government subsidies, and tax incentives. Finally, the improvement in the government–business relationship reduces the economic resources that enterprises obtain from the government, thus indicating that the political motivation for corporate philanthropy will be mitigated after the change in that relationship. The results of this study clarify the actual motives underlying corporate philanthropy and provide empirical evidence for the government to reference when establishing and adjusting the government–business relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we focus on the conceptualization of corporate citizenship and examine the effects of its tangible manifestation, in the form of corporate philanthropy, on company performance recognizing the importance of the institutional contexts where companies are embedded. Based on a sample of 752 multinational companies that have joined the UN Global Compact, we explore the derived benefits, using as a moderator the legal environment where companies operate. The results of the random‐effect regression analysis show the existence of a positive relationship between corporate citizenship and corporate market valuation over the study period (2016–2022). Findings on corporate citizenship are consistent with previous studies, and the role of the legal tradition emerges as a salient avenue for future investigation. Companies that highly leverage the philanthropic dimension of corporate citizenship and are primarily embedded in a common‐law tradition benefit more than those operating in a civil‐law system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study examines the relationship between the management board compensation and corporate philanthropy in financial institutions. By analyzing a sample of 240 cooperative banks over six years, the research investigates the impact of management board compensation on the level and extent of corporate philanthropy these institutions undertake. To estimate the models, we used the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) approach. The findings demonstrate that the bank’s management board’s compensation significantly influences the size and scope of corporate philanthropy. Moreover, the study reveals that financial institutions consider their financial situation when formulating strategies for implementing corporate philanthropy. Notably, the analysis highlights that the increase in variable components of management board compensation has a more pronounced effect on corporate philanthropy’s volume and range than fixed compensation. These results shed light on aligning management board compensation with social responsibility objectives in financial institutions. By understanding the influence of compensation structures on corporate philanthropy, organizations can take conscious decisions to enhance their social impact while considering their financial performance. This study contributes to the growing literature on corporate social responsibility and provides valuable insights for practitioners, regulators, and stakeholders in the financial industry.

Purpose: This study identifies the main area and current dynamics of Corporate Philanthropy (CP) and offers recommendations for future research directions. Design/methodology/approach: Using bibliometrics, we examined a sample of 558 studies from Scopus, an online abstract and citation repository, to examine the research activities relating to CP between 1955 and 2022. Articles and authors with high citation impact scores are identified based on the publication’s position and significance within the field. We then explore contemporary issues, identify possible limitations towards the development of the literature, and propose new lines of inquiry for future studies. Findings: In addition to providing an in-depth analysis, this study discusses recent discoveries and shifts in mindsets pertaining to Corporate Philanthropy, taking into account previously documented findings which regarded CP disadvantageous to many companies mainly due to money outflow. The ‘agency theory’ considers the relationship between a principal and its hired representative. Past reports cited managers leveraging on CP as a way to justify unnecessary expenses. Meanwhile, the latest studies discovered that CP brings in various advantages to the companies such as additional profit avenues, enhanced visibility, and stronger market presence, benefiting its stakeholders and securing the sustainability of those companies. Future research on CP can be expanded through our suggested research directions. Research limitations/implications: This study focuses on using the Scopus database as the primary source of the journals. Hence, our findings may differ from the studies conducted using other databases. Originality/value: This is among the pioneer studies using Harzing and VOSviewer software to analyse the development of CP studies. Several future research agendas are generated due to the review, which focuses on annual publication trends, the most prolific authors, the most cited papers, the most prolific countries, the most prolific institutions and the most abundant sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large foreign firms' interventions in violent conflicts have drawn increasing research attention. Nonetheless, scant research has investigated how foreign small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which have little capacity in peacebuilding, can protect themselves from violent conflict risk. Drawing upon the instrumental stakeholder theory (IST), this study explores two specific local community-oriented corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices (i.e., corporate philanthropy and workforce localization) as violent conflict risk buffering strategies for foreign SMEs. Further, we examine their varying effects in different institutional environments (i.e., host country media freedom and labor rights protection). Using data from a cross-country survey of Chinese foreign SMEs combined with archival data from multiple sources, we empirically confirm the attenuating effects of both corporate philanthropy and workforce localization on foreign SMEs' violent conflict risk. Besides, we discover that host country labor rights protection strengthens the mitigation impact of workforce localization on violent conflict risk. Our study advances the literature on IST and CSR by revealing the risk mitigation mechanism of CSR activities for foreign SMEs and elucidating its institutional boundary conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frequent changes in economic policy pose challenges to normal business production and operations. However, little is known about the non-market strategies adopted by firms in emerging economies, such as China, in response to economic policy uncertainty. This study proposes that firms in China respond to high levels of economic policy uncertainty by increasing philanthropic donations and bribery. In addition, this study argues that private firms and state-owned firms implement different strategies to cope with economic policy uncertainty. Specifically, the study suggests that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are more likely, than non-SOEs, to respond to economic policy uncertainty by increasing corporate philanthropy, and less likely to respond by increasing expenditure on bribes. This study obtained empirical evidence to support these views, based on an analysis of a dataset of 2,904 listed Chinese firms from 2008 to 2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon a long-term study of venture philanthropy and public schools in Australia, this paper focuses on Teach For Australia (TFA) as a major component of a venture philanthropic network, one that builds critical infrastructures and connections between non-government organisations and the state, creating a product pipeline into public schools. Utilising interviews with staff from Teach For Australia and venture philanthropic organisations, comprehensive and rigorous financial data, reviews, reports and website data, the analysis aims to identify the major philanthropic funders, individual actors and private foundations that leverage Teach For Australia, illustrating how this network develops for-profit pathways into public schools. In pushing a deficit framing of public schools, these networks incur privatisation effects, including flows of money, resources and key decision-making. They compromise the democratic principles upon which public schools are ideally based, in that the most disadvantaged public schools are opened up to 'entrepreneurial' and risk-taking corporate behaviour to test out teachers, products and services. By examining streams of revenue, partnerships and networks, we show how the purportedly non-profit Teach For Australia develops for-profit opportunities and business partnerships nested in corporate philanthropy, resulting in a privatisation effect on public schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many family firms trace the origin of their property rights to the privatization of state-owned enterprises, particularly in emerging economies. The benefits of such ownership origins have been amply researched; however, there are also disadvantages. By developing the concept of the liability of ownership origin, we theorize that this liability creates legitimacy challenges for privatized family firms, leading their owners to exhibit a lower desire for both family and transgenerational control compared to de novo family firms. However, corporate philanthropy can mitigate these negative effects. Empirical analyses using a national survey of Chinese family-owned firms support our arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the cognitive dissonance theory and the behavioral consistency theory, this study examines whether hypocrisy, proxied by the ethical dissonance between corporate philanthropy and environmental misconducts, triggers auditors to issue modified audit opinions (MAOs), and further investigates the moderating effect of hypocrisy on the relation between financial reporting quality (proxied by discretionary accruals) and MAOs. Using a sample of 20,852 firm-year observations from the Chinese stock market over 2005–2019, our findings reveal that the likelihood of receiving MAOs is significantly higher for hypocritical firms than for their counterparts, suggesting that hypocrisy provides negative soft information about top managers' myopia, immorality and lack of integrity, elicits the perceived distrust from auditors, motivates auditors to have a higher extent of professional skepticism, and eventually triggers MAOs. Moreover, hypocrisy reinforces the negative (positive) relation between financial reporting quality (discretionary accruals) and MAOs. Furthermore, above findings are robust to a variety of sensitivity tests using alternative proxies for modified audit opinions and hypocrisy, as well as different sample compositions, and further our conclusions are still valid after using the propensity score matching approach and two-stage treatment effect regression procedures to control for the endogeneity issue. Lastly, the effect of hypocrisy on MAOs is more pronounced for remedial (ex post) hypocrisy than for preventive (ex ante) hypocrisy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) on community investment (CI), otherwise known as corporate philanthropic expenditures, among Canada's leading private sector companies. The study investigates whether there have been discernible shifts in CI relative to net profit after tax (NPAT) before and after the introduction of the SDGs in 2015, and whether corporations' commitment to the SDGs and/or membership in the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) have resulted in material increases to CI expenditures. The analysis is based on descriptive statistics, comparing the mean and standard deviation of CI as a percentage of NPAT across 58 firms included in our study. The findings reveal a minor decrease in CI as a percentage of NPAT following the introduction of the SDGs and lower average CI amounts among corporations committed to the SDGs and firms with UNGC membership. This paper offers an interpretive analysis of the results, highlighting the implications of potential greenwashing and the importance of corporate transparency. Further, we emphasize the need for policies to ensure genuine corporate financial commitment to socioeconomic and environmental causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the ways through which new philanthropy in education is being enacted in Portugal, focusing on one of its significant imaginaries: social inclusion. We analyse EPIS (Entrepreneurs for Social Inclusion), a top association dedicated to corporate philanthropy with a growing presence in the education system. Drawing on Popkewitz's concept of fabrication, it examines EPIS' programmes and deliverables as technologies that constitute social inclusion as an object of policy, knowledge and practice, targeting students (transforming 'at-risk' students into entrepreneurs), teachers and schools (transforming their cultures to become performance-oriented), and the relationship between State and non-State actors (fostering the State's adoption of a rule-following role, dependent on knowledge generated by non-State actors). This paper suggests that new philanthropies' social inclusion imaginary enacts a system of reason that promulgates results-oriented and evidence-based approaches to educational policy and knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study examines the relationship between the management board compensation and corporate philanthropy in financial institutions. By analyzing a sample of 240 cooperative banks over six years, the research investigates the impact of management board compensation on the level and extent of corporate philanthropy these institutions undertake. To estimate the models, we used the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) approach. The findings demonstrate that the bank's management board's compensation significantly influences the size and scope of corporate philanthropy. Moreover, the study reveals that financial institutions consider their financial situation when formulating strategies for implementing corporate philanthropy. Notably, the analysis highlights that the increase in variable components of management board compensation has a more pronounced effect on corporate philanthropy's volume and range than fixed compensation. These results shed light on aligning management board compensation with social responsibility objectives in financial institutions. By understanding the influence of compensation structures on corporate philanthropy, organizations can take conscious decisions to enhance their social impact while considering their financial performance. This study contributes to the growing literature on corporate social responsibility and provides valuable insights for practitioners, regulators, and stakeholders in the financial industry. IMPACT STATEMENT: This study examines the influence of management board compensation on corporate philanthropy in cooperative banks, offering valuable insights for shaping regulatory frameworks and corporate governance practices. By exploring this relationship, the research highlights how compensation structures can promote socially responsible behavior within financial institutions. The findings provide practical guidance for stakeholders and investors in assessing banks' commitment to social causes and sustainability. This study fills an important gap in the literature by addressing the underexplored connection between executive compensation and corporate philanthropy, particularly in the context of cooperative banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing body of research on corporate philanthropy, there remains a lack of understanding regarding how local embeddedness impacts the philanthropic activities of firms. Our study addresses this gap in the philanthropy literature by proposing and testing a model that elucidates this mechanism. Drawing on data from 166 firms operating in the mining industry, our findings indicate that local embeddedness has a positive effect on a firm's social legitimacy. However, we also discovered that this relationship is amplified when there is greater legal inefficiency. Additionally, our results demonstrate that a firm's social legitimacy serves as a mediator in the relationship between local embeddedness and corporate philanthropy. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the effect of insiders' share pledging (SP) on corporate philanthropy and find that SP firms engage in corporate philanthropy more often than non‐SP firms. This effect is more pronounced for firms with higher downward price pressure or margin call risks. Our results remain robust after using alternative measures and addressing endogeneity issues. We also sample a group of SP and non‐SP firms that make comparable philanthropic donations and find that SP firms show better market performance and lower downside risks of stock price movements than non‐SP firms, indicating that SP firms use corporate philanthropy to alleviate margin call risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine whether firms engage in more corporate philanthropy in response to greater tax enforcement. Using the introduction of a new tax administration system as a proxy for increased tax enforcement, I find stricter tax enforcement results in more corporate donations, especially for tax aggressive firms. These results are concentrated in firms that have a greater demand for political connections or firms that have higher potential reputational costs. In summary, this study suggests that firms strategically use corporate philanthropy to respond to increased tax enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research object is a business model of enterprises’ strategic renewal in the areas of economy, environmental friendliness, and sociality. Key problem: the need to develop a business model for strategic renewal of enterprises, maximally adapted to the current challenges of the market and society. Based on the prerequisites for the evolution of traditional corporate strategies to a stakeholder approach, a business model for strategic enterprise renewal has been formed. The relative nature of companies’ business activity, transformation of analysis methods and approaches to decision-making, as well as key elements, vectors, and results of interaction within the developed business model are determined and justified. The possibilities of practical application of a social-oriented inclusive business model in the implementation of business analysis are shown. Interpretation of the research results: the social-oriented business model of enterprises’ strategic renewal is developed on the basis of systematization of the relative approach, theories of stakeholders and corporate philanthropy, the concept of “charitable corporation” and orientation to socially inclusive value instead of traditional shareholder value. Along with the traditional economic aspect of the business model, the environmental and social aspects are outlined. To adapt business models of enterprises to modern challenges, it is proposed to increase the use of qualitative analysis parameters in the implementation of strategic decisions, as well as to design the development of relations with key stakeholders. Practical significance: Certain parameters of the business model can be used by enterprises to conduct a critical analysis of their own business strategies and develop effective measures to adapt them to modern challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While previous studies have discussed how much should be given by firms, less is known about how firms would spend these investments, such as strategically allocating these philanthropy activities across geographic markets. This study examines the impact of multimarket contact on corporate philanthropy in different geographic markets. Using Chinese property insurance firms from 2007 to 2015 as samples, the results show that firms are less likely to initiate philanthropy activities in geographic markets with high multimarket contact. We also found that the negative impact of multimarket competition on corporate philanthropy is stronger in highly concentrated markets. Moreover, this negative relationship is stronger when institutional distance at a firm level is low. Our study contributes to the literature on corporate philanthropy and multimarket contact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Question/Issue: This paper examines the relationship between having nonfamily members (i.e., family outsiders) as board chairs and corporate philanthropy. Research Findings/Insights: In a hand‐collected dataset of Chinese family firms, we find that firms invest less in philanthropy when the board chair is a nonfamily member. However, this impact is mitigated when the chair's discretion is restricted, as in highly visible firms or firms controlled by the founding family. The negative relation between nonfamily chairs and corporate philanthropy is also weaker when the interest of chairs is more aligned with that of the controlling family, where chairs are inside‐promoted or members of founding team, when board chairs and the families have more goal consistency, when stakeholders have higher demands for corporate social responsibility or investors care less about profitability. Further analysis shows that nonfamily chairs help firms reduce overinvestment in philanthropy, the board chair has a more salient effect than the CEO on philanthropic giving, and the results are not driven by expropriation issues of the controlling family. Theoretical/Academic Implications: Our study highlights the heterogeneity of board chairs in family firms, board chair's significant influence on a firm's social performance, and the agency problem related with the board chair, which are all underexplored topics in prior literature. Practitioner/Policy Implications: Our evidence offers insights to practitioners about the impact of board chairs on corporate philanthropy. Family firms need pay attention to the recruitment of board chairs and hold a comprehensive view of family firm professionalization as a nonfamily board chair might negatively affect firms' stakeholder relationship management but bring benefits by mitigating excess philanthropic activities. Besides, practitioners shall be aware of agency problems originating from board chairs. Incentives or monitoring over chairs might be useful to address potential conflicts of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the relationship between political uncertainty and corporate philanthropy in emerging markets, using China as the research setting. The growth of companies in China depends largely on various national policies which are also the main drivers on Chinese economic development. Those polices are actually executed by local leaders with a certain degree of autonomy. Each leader has a personal style of policy implementation in his/her jurisdictions. Once the local leader shifts, enterprises in the region may face the risk of policy implementation changes. Leadership transitions in Chinese cities were chosen to represent political uncertainty. After a change in local government leadership, more philanthropic activities and higher charitable spending were identified for listed companies in the region. The trend was exceptionally prominent for companies with higher regulatory risks. In that regard, companies in the private sector or owned by the local government, from pollution-intensive industries, or with a considerable size were riskier. In addition, the study identified the potential of charitable giving in lessening administrative punishments for the donating companies. The research expanded the literature on political uncertainty and corporate philanthropy by illustrating the effectiveness of the former as a response to the latter.

While studies on corporate philanthropy have blossomed in recent times, little is known empirically about its practice formalized through foundations. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with seven corporate foundations, this paper explored the giving strategies, opportunities, and challenges of corporate foundations in Ghana. Our findings based on thematic analysis revealed that corporate foundations rely on a combination of strategies (request, media-lead, adoption, and contest) to identify potential beneficiaries and implement their giving programs. Further evidence indicates that giving of corporate foundations presents opportunities to the foundations themselves (serve society, get partnership offers from other companies, and obtain goodwill from the public) and their parent companies (indirect business and advertising opportunities). Nonetheless, corporate foundation giving is constrained by insufficient funding, lack of support from stakeholders, managing expectations of individuals, poor maintenance culture, and cultural rites. The findings have implications for practitioners as it present insights that could serve as a model to guide new entrants into the corporate foundation landscape of developing economies. In addition, the findings could assist the development of government interventions necessary to foster more formalized corporate giving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have long suggested that CEOs can benefit from corporate philanthropy. However, little is known about this relationship in contexts of authoritarian capitalism such as China, where the state not only uses its control of economic entities to pursue social goals but also plays a key role in CEOs' careers. We theorize how corporate philanthropy among state-controlled firms increases the CEO's likelihood of receiving career benefits from the state in the form of outside directorships. Outside directorships represent an important form of social capital in the Chinese context, and corporate philanthropy is an important mechanism through which social capital can be acquired. In addition, we theorize how two factors—the degree of state ownership and the number of independent directors on the CEO's board—moderate this relationship. Analyzing a 12-year panel of state-controlled, publicly-listed firms in China comprising 6,594 firm-year observations, we find general support for our ideas. In so doing, we contribute to scholarship on the business–society relationship and corporate governance in the context of authoritarian capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic interest in corporate venturing (CV) has grown considerably over the past decade, given its importance to corporate transformation and improvement. Prior research emphasized the effect of the external market environment on CV, neglecting the role of nonmarket arenas in supplying resources and opportunities to incumbent firms as a potentially vital antecedent to CV activities. This paper brings attention to the important but ignored role of corporate philanthropy, which has been employed by private firms to build their political legitimacy and garner the resources and opportunities needed in their external corporate venturing (ECV) activities. Drawing on institutional theory, in particular the notion of political legitimacy, this paper first tests the relationship between corporate philanthropy and ECV. It then unveils the varying moderating roles of three types of political connections (i.e., exploiting entrepreneurs' prior governmental working experience, being political council members and affiliating with the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce) that influence the proposed relationship. Research findings from 1,574 entrepreneurial private firms in China support our theoretical predictions. This paper advances the CV literature by introducing a nonmarket strategy explanation to the antecedent of ECV and specifying the simultaneous effect of corporate philanthropy and political connections on ECV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the strategic nature of banks' charitable giving by studying bank donations to local nonprofit organizations. Relying on the application of antitrust rules in bank mergers as an exogenous shock to local deposit market competition, we find that local competition affects banks' local donation decisions. Using county-level natural disaster shocks, we show that banks with disaster exposure reallocate donations away from nonshocked counties, where they operate branches, and toward shocked counties. The reallocation of donations represents an exogenous increase in the local share of donations in nonshocked counties for banks with no disaster exposure and leads to an increase in the local deposit market shares of such banks. Furthermore, banks can potentially earn greater profits from making donations and tend to donate to nonprofits that have the most social impact. Overall, our evidence suggests that banks participate in corporate philanthropy strategically to enhance performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the moderating effect of political turnover on the relationship between corporate misconduct and corporate philanthropy. By using panel data from Chinese listed companies, we first demonstrate a positive relationship between fraudulent firms and their philanthropic engagement. We find that when the local city is experiencing turnover of mayors, firms that engage in misconduct will donate more than usual. Our results suggest that firms have incentives to "whitewash" their potential mistakes and maintain a good relationship with the government due to the uncertainty of the political environment. In addition, for privately owned companies, the moderating effect of political turnover would be even more significant as the development of firms largely depends on "Guanxi" with the local government. Our research develops the literature on corporate misconduct by emphasizing the importance of political factors for enterprises. In engaging with how firms develop their donation strategy, it provides insights for practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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