企业多元化经营程度与慈善捐赠——基于利益相关者识别理论的视角

Corporate Diversification Degree and Charitable Donations Based on Perspective of Stakeholder Identification Theory

利益相关者的重要性在很大程度上决定了企业高管对其需求的关注程度。相对于专业化经营,企业多元化经营的程度越高,外部利益相关者的重要性越强,企业回应外部利益相关者诉求的压力就越大。利用2004—2014年中国上市公司的数据,分析和考察了多元化经营企业通过慈善捐赠来回应外部决定性利益相关者诉求的作用机制及其边界条件。研究发现,企业经营的多元化程度越高,外部利益相关者的重要性越强,企业的慈善捐赠就越多。进一步地,国有企业、有政治关联的企业和处在消费者敏感型行业的企业,多元化经营程度对其慈善捐赠的影响更强。研究结论丰富了企业多元化战略研究的内容,也为理解企业战略与慈善捐赠的影响提供了经验证据。

The importance of stakeholders, to a large degree, determines the degree of top executives concern to their demand. In contrast to specialized firms, the more diversification a firm is, the more important the outside stakeholders are, and the more pressure a firm would face to respond to the stakeholders claims. By using a sample of Chinese A-share non-financial listed companies during the years from 2004 to 2014, this paper analyzes the mechanism and boundary condition in which diversification affects charitable donations as an indicator of stakeholder demands. It finds that the more diversification degree, the more important the stakeholders and the more the charitable donations. Further analysis shows that state-owned firms, political connections and consumer-sensitive industry play a positive moderating role in the relationship between product diversification and charitable donations. It offers a perspective for fully understanding the diversification of distinct stakeholder demands and sociopolitical environments. The findings suggest that charitable donations can be a strategic response of a firm to stakeholder s demand it faces. Further research finds that, diversification degree would be strong in the state-owned enterprises, politically associated enterprises and consumer-sensitive industries which actively carry out the charitable donations and handle with the demand and political issues. The research conclusion enriches the current research for enterprise diversification strategy. Moreover, it also provides some empirical evidence to study the impact between firm s strategic reaction and charitable donations.