社会责任承担能提升企业信心吗?——企业参与精准扶贫的实证研究

Can Corporate Social Responsibility Improve Firm’s Confidence:A Study Based on Firms’ Participation in Targeted Poverty Alleviation

提高市场主体信心对促进高质量发展、开启全面建设社会主义现代化国家新征程具有重要意义。作为重要市场主体,企业信心受到企业与外部环境互动的影响。履行社会责任是企业与外部环境互动的主要方式,会影响企业信心。在国家脱贫攻坚战略背景下,参与精准扶贫是企业履行社会责任的重要体现。本文以A股上市公司数据为样本,研究了参与精准扶贫对企业信心的影响。研究发现:企业参与精准扶贫有效提升了企业信心;与国有企业相比,非国有企业参与精准扶贫更有助于其信心提升;与有行业协会背景的企业相比,缺乏行业协会背景的企业参与精准扶贫更有助于其信心提升;企业进行产业扶贫或跨地区扶贫更有助于企业信心的提升。本文揭示了:参与精准扶贫,一方面有助于企业合法性提升和社会合作网络构建,提高企业对自身的信心;另一方面可以提升企业对中国特色社会主义制度优越性的认识,提高企业对外部环境的信心。本研究是对精准扶贫、社会责任和企业信心研究的重要补充,为巩固脱贫成果、推动企业承担社会责任和提升市场主体信心提供了实践启示。

Confidence is the key to firm’s growth and economic development.Effectively stabilizing and enhancing firm’s confidence is of great significance to promoting high-quality development and embarking on a new journey to fully build a modern socialist country.Firm’s confidence is a dynamic status which is influenced by the interaction between firms and their external environment.And undertaking corporate social responsibility(CSR)is an important way for firms to interact with the external environment.Guided by the thought of targeted poverty alleviation first put forward by general secretary Xi Jinping in 2013,social responsibility activities in poverty alleviation fully reflect the cooperation and interaction between firms,the government,social organizations and individuals.Based on this reality,this paper explores how firms’participation in targeted poverty alleviation improve firms’confidence.By analyzing data about the participation in targeted poverty alleviation and confidence of A-share listed firms,this paper finds that:first,participation in targeted poverty alleviation effectively promotes the improvement of firms’confidence;second,participation in targeted poverty alleviation promotes firms’confidence to a greater extent for non-state-owned firms and firms whose executives do not have the background related to industry association.Furthermore,we also find that firms’participation in poverty alleviation by developing industries or cross-regional has a more positive influence on the improvement of firms’confidence.Our findings illustrate the mechanism how firms’participation in targeted poverty alleviation influence firms’confidence.That is,on the one hand,participation in targeted poverty alleviation can help firms improve their legitimacy and construct a strong social cooperation networks,which can consequently improve firms’confidence in themselves;on the other hand,participation in targeted poverty alleviation can enhance firms understanding about the superiority of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics,and then enhance their confidence in the external environment.This study has several contributions to both CSR research and literature on firms’confidence.First,existing studies mainly focus on the"instrumental"role of CSR and its impact on firm performance,while this study focuses on the influence of CSR on corporate confidence,supplementing CSR research.Second,prior research mainly discusses the influence of executives’internal confidence on firms’strategy,or the influence of external institutional environment on firms’confidence,while ignoring the influence of the interaction between enterprises and environment.This paper analyzes the role of CSR on firms’confidence,expanding research on firms’confidence.Third,extant studies mainly focus on the factors affecting firms’participation in poverty alleviation,or analyze the mode and effect of firms’participation in poverty alleviation through case studies,without investigating the influence of participation in targeted poverty alleviation on firms.This study empirically examines the positive influence of participation in targeted poverty alleviation on firms’development and reveals the influence mechanism,which enriches research on targeted poverty alleviation.At the moment of winning the poverty alleviation battle and the start of the 14 th Five-Year Plan,our paper also provides strong practical implications for consolidating poverty alleviation achievements,and also contributes to further promote firms taking social responsibility.Our study indicates that firms’participation in targeted poverty alleviation can not only promote poverty alleviation,help the poor overcome poverty and help poor people build up their confidence to get out of poverty,but also have a spillover effect on firms’confidence.Thus,firms’participation in targeted poverty alleviation is a multi-win action for the development of poor areas,firms and the cuntry.Moreover,this paper also provides many valuable suggestions for the improvement of firms’confidence.Firms should actively undertake social responsibilities,actively participate in social governance,becoming the main force to promote high-quality economic development.The government should further encourage firms to assume social responsibilities and encourage them to enhance their confidence by participating in social governance.