管理者背景特征与企业捐赠行为

Background Feature of Manager and Corporate Donation

本文以我国2006～2009年在沪深交易所上市的公司为样本,实证检验了管理者背景特征对企业捐赠行为的影响。研究结果表明,在管理者背景特征变量中是否有政治背景和政治背景类型对企业捐赠行为具有显著影响,学历背景仅在低社会信任环境下对企业捐赠行为具有显著的影响,其他背景特征变量与企业捐赠行为都不存在显著的一致相关性。在进一步区分企业产权性质后的研究发现,在国有产权企业和私有产权企业中,管理者政治背景类型对企业捐赠行为的影响具有显著差异。本文的研究反映了在我国的制度环境下,影响企业捐赠行为的因素中,政府因素起着重要作用,企业的捐赠行为更多地受到高管政治背景关系的影响,在我国的企业捐赠中存在着基于互惠交换的理性捐赠行为,传统的慈善捐赠行为受到了一定的冲击。

As an important channel for the provision of public goods, the corporate donation takes an important part in the corporate social responsibility. With the emergency of the CSR theory, corporations＇ different reactions and attitudes to donation has been of intense interest as a topic of public debate and academic research. A number of recent papers have focused on documenting the corporate donation in perspective of internal resource capacity. See for example Berman （1999）, Seifert （2003）, these papers have focused on documenting the corporate dona- tion from the view of the firms＇ cash flow and operating performance. Hess （2002） , Brammer and Millington （2005） did the research from the perspective of the firms＇ scale, image, life cycle and industry. Also, some scholars analyze the connection between government behaviors （Preferential tax policy and Administrative mobilization） and corporate donation from the view of external environment. However, it is at variance with the reality that they treat managers from different corporations in a homogenous way. In reality, the difference in sex, age, education background and some relevant experience may lead to great differences in their behavior choice. Particularly, as a kind of charity, corporate donation is more susceptible by the managers＇ awareness and emotions. Though many foreign scholars have been concerned about this issue, there are few researches about it in our country. Considering the huge differences in social culture at home and abroad, it is necessary to research the connection between corporate donation and the managers＇ awareness, emotion and val- ues on the basis of China＇s domestic characteristics.It is hard to measure and check the managers＇ emotions and values, which appears as psychological factors The high-order theory suggests that people＇ s awareness and values are the products of their backgrounds, experi- ence and trainings. So the managers＇ measurable characteristics, namely demographic characteristics, such as age, sex, education and occupational experience, can be the projection index of its quality. This alternative index has been widely used in previous studies, for instance, the demographic characteristics have been incorporated into the analysis of the values of business students, the preference of the non-management work and the beliefs managers and blue-collar workers held on their job. On the basis of above analysis, we study the connection between the managers＇ background and the corporate donation by using the data of enterprises listed during 2006 to 2009 in Shanghai Stock Exchange or in Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Our results provide support for the hypothesis that managers＇ political background has remarkable effect on the corporate donation, that is the firms whose manager gets a political background are more likely to have the higher probability and larger quantity of corporate donation, the managers＇ education background only in the low degree of social trust environments has remarkable influence to the corporate donation. Besides, the other variables about the managers＇ background and the corporate donation have not significant correlation. Lastly, we distinguish the nature of property rights to explore if the managers＇ political background in firms with different property rights has different connection with the corporate donation, we find that in the enterprises of different nature of property rights, the types of managers＇ political relationship have different influences to the corporate donation. These results of our study indicate that under the system background of China, the government plays an important role in corporate donation, the managers＇ political background affects the corporate donation significantly. It shows a rational donation behavior based on reciprocal exchange in the corporate donation, which shocks the tradi- tional charitable donation. In this paper we offer a basic explanation of the corporate donation and enrich the related literature, this paper also helps us to make a better understanding of the reality of corporate donation in China.