地区间制度期望落差与企业社会责任响应行为——基于中国上市公司的经验分析

Regional Institutional Aspiration Gap and CSR Response:An Empirical Study Based on Chinese Listed Companies

制度环境对企业战略行为的影响备受关注。文章结合制度理论和企业行为理论的逻辑框架,将企业所在地区的实际制度发展水平低于同行业其他企业所在地区的制度期望水平的差距,界定为地区间制度期望落差,基于此,探讨了企业在面临地区制度期望落差时的社会责任响应行为。研究表明:地区制度期望落差困境促使企业通过增强社会责任战略响应程度降低不确定性,释放良好声誉信号和构建社会网络,以此应对制度不均衡带来的相对制度空隙。进一步,当面对地区制度期望落差时,企业通过模仿同行业领先企业社会责任行为降低不确定性与成本,同行业领先企业较高的社会责任水平将强化制度期望落差与企业社会责任之间的正向关系;分析师关注度通过提升社会责任战略的有效性增强管理者动机,从而强化制度期望落差与社会责任之间的正向关系;充足的资源禀赋则会增强制度期望落差困境下企业实施社会责任战略的资源能力,由此强化了二者之间的正向关系,而较高程度的绩效期望落差则起到相反作用。文章尝试结合中国转型制度背景的特殊性,从地区制度期望视角透析企业非市场战略的决策动机及影响机制,拓展了企业行为理论在中国转型制度背景下的研究边界。

Since the reform and opening up, Chinese firms, while enjoying the development dividends of market economy, also face the unique challenges of China’s institutional environment which has both the characteristics of “emerging economy” and“transitional economy”. Most of the existing literature discusses China’s institutional environment under the general background of being an emerging economy, ignoring the particularity of China’s regional institutional differences and disequilibrium, and focuses on the market strategy with a slight focus on non-market strategy. Therefore, it has become an important issue for the academia and practice to explore how Chinese firms effectively deal with the institutional differences and disequilibrium in China.Based on the institutional theory and the behavioral theory of firms, this paper defines the gap between the actual institutional development level of the firm’s location and the institutional aspiration level of other firms’ locations in the same industry as regional institutional aspiration gap, and discusses the firm’s CSR response under the relative institutional gap. Using the data of Chinese listed companies from 2007 to 2020, this paper draws the following conclusions: The regional institutional aspiration gap promotes firms to increase CSR strategic response to reduce the impact of uncertainty, release positive reputation signal and build social networks to fill the relative institutional dilemma. The CSR level of leading peer firms and analysts’ attention will enhance managers’ motivation, thereby strengthening the positive relationship between institutional aspiration gap and CSR response. Resource endowment provides firms with more resources and capabilities, so that it strengthens the positive relationship between institutional aspiration gap and CSR response, while the performance aspiration gap plays the opposite role.This paper has the following theoretical contributions: First, it broadens the research paradigm dominated by the absolute level of institutional development, provides a new theoretical perspective for understanding the institutional antecedents of strategic response, and enriches organizational management goals in the study of the behavioral theory of firms. Second, the comparison of regional institutional aspiration gap takes place in regions within a country, which expands the comparison reference group in the institutional distance research. Third, China is in a period of economic transition where non-market factors have a much more important impact on business success in China than in Western countries. Incorporating CSR as an important nonmarket strategy into the strategic response of institutional aspiration gap has a stronger theoretical and applied value. Fourth, it emphasizes that there exists special circumstances of institutional complexity, such as regional institutional differences and disequilibrium, the coexistence of market and non-market logics and so on under China’s institutional transformation environment.