企业履行社会责任的共赢效应——基于精准扶贫的视角

本文以沪深A股非金融上市公司作为样本,研究实施精准扶贫对扶贫企业以及被扶贫地区的影响。研究发现,对于扶贫企业而言,实施精准扶贫能够显著缓解其融资约束。从扶贫方式来看,产业扶贫和教育扶贫的效果最为明显。从经济后果来看,实施精准扶贫不仅提高了扶贫企业的经营业绩,而且增加了股东的财富水平。对于被扶贫地区而言,精准扶贫显著提高了地区经济发展和居民可支配收入的增长速度,更重要的是,该地区的生态环境并未遭受明显破坏。在企业实施精准扶贫的动机方面,本文发现管理者私利动机并不能解释企业的精准扶贫行为。上述结果表明,与慈善捐赠有所不同,企业实施精准扶贫并不是企业自利的工具,而是利他性动机与战略性动机的结合,能够实现企业、社会与环境三者的共赢。

The Win-Win Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility:Evidence from Targeted Poverty Alleviation Programs

Targeted poverty alleviation(hereafter: TPA) was proposed by Chinese central government in 2013. TPA requires firms to provide specific and effective assistance to poverty-stricken people throughout China. This assistance should seek to solve the problems that cause people to be trapped in poverty. Accordingly, a number of socially responsible firms have initiated TPA programs.We summarize that there are three motivations for firms to perform corporate social responsibility (CSR) such as TPA. The first is altruistic motivation, which involves firms giving assistance to others in society without receiving a return. The second is managerial agency motivation, which involves managers using firms' resources to enhance their own social image. The third is strategic motivation, which involves firms performing CSR activities to acquire strategic resources, such as social reputation and political connections. Although there are many studies on CSR,most studies only consider philanthropic donations and do not consider non-cash assistance (e.g., technical and educational assistance). Moreover, previous studies focus on whether and how much firms donate but do not examine whether donations achieve their desired effects. These studies conclude that the motivation of CSR is not altruistic and may be another form of managerial agency cost. We believe that this conclusion may misinterpret firms' motivation to perform CSR. Thus, we explore firms' motivation to perform CSR by examining whether their motivations to engage in TPA and the effects of their doing so are different from those related to philanthropic donations. Our sample includes all of the non-financial A-share firms listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange. We manually collect firms' implementations of TPA from annual reports and CSR reports. We find that engaging in TPA reduces firms' financial constraints and thus increases firms' performance and shareholder wealth. Furthermore, we find that TPA spurs local economic growth and enhances residents' income within targeted regions. Furthermore, TPA does not cause significant damage to the regional environment. We also find that firms do not participate in TPA to conceal misconduct or to divert investors' attention from stagnant stock prices, which allows us to exclude managerial agency as a motivation. Overall, our findings suggest that firms' participation in TPA is driven by altruistic and strategic motivations and ultimately creates a win-win situation for firms, society, and the environment. Our findings provide important information for policymakers who devise methods to reduce poverty. Specifically, our findings suggest that the governments should encourage firms to deeply embed themselves in poor regions of the world, as by doing so, firms can use technology and talent to increase the efficiency of poverty alleviation. In addition, subsequent to the implementation of rural revitalization strategies in China, firms should establish long-term mechanisms to systematically achieve rural revitalization. For example, by allocating more advanced technology and talent to rural areas, firms could integrate themselves with local economies and thus obtain returns from resource complementarity.Our study makes several contributions to the literature. First, we clarify what motivates firms to perform CSR in terms of why they engage in TPA. Studies conclude that firms' motivations to perform CSR are not altruistic and may be used as a tool to achieve managerial goals. However, we evaluate the effects of CSR and find that firms' engagement in TPA is motivated by altruism, suggesting that firms genuinely wish to improve social welfare, rather than to simply pursue managerial self-interest. Our study thus provides a new theoretical perspective that gives a better understanding of what motivates firms to engage in CSR. Second, our study clarifies whether engaging in CSR produces unilateral benefits or creates a win-win situation. Many papers find that CSR produces benefits for only one party. For example, Chen et al. (2018) find that engaging in CSR reduces a firm's profitability and shareholder wealth. Lu et al. (2020) find that these reductions in profitability and shareholder wealth occur in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and in non-SOEs; thus, CSR improves social welfare at the expense of shareholder wealth. In contrast, we find that engaging in TPA increases shareholder wealth and promotes local economic growth without damaging the local environment; thus, engaging in TPA can create a win-win situation. This is a new perspective that broadens understanding of the effect of CSR on firms' profitabilities and social welfare.