The Anatomy of a Socially Responsible Corporation

摘要

Prior research treats corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a unitary construct. Using principal component analysis, we show that CSR activities can be divided into two types: responsive CSR (RCSR), which includes initiatives that address specific concerns caused by firm activity, and adaptive CSR (ACSR), which are initiatives that anticipate concerns before they arise. We find that responsive motives are roughly three times more dominant than adaptive motives. Larger firms, older firms, and more diversified firms invest more in RCSR while younger firms and more focused firms tend to invest more in ACSR.