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Corporate charitable giving refers to the unconditional provision of funds or materials by companies to governments or related institutions in a voluntary and non-reciprocal manner to solve social problems such as poverty, education, natural disasters and public health. Corporate charitable giving not only brings strategic resources and information channels needed for enterprise innovation, but also helps companies enhance their moral capital, improve their brand image and increase their political legitimacy.
- corporate social responsibility
- corporate charitable giving
- theoretical framework
- enterprise innovation
1. Introduction
Corporate philanthropy as a business practice has been on the rise since the early 1950s, when companies mainly made cash donations to nonprofit organizations through foundations, as an effective way to demonstrate their social responsibility (Eells, 1958; Honer, 1955) [12,13]. In the 1970s and 1980s, globalization led to a trend of increased corporate mobility, which had a negative impact on the long-term relationship between companies and the workforce. Companies begin to explore the use of corporate philanthropy to restore these labor relations (Kasper and Fulton, 2006) [14]. Since the early 1990s, companies have turned to charitable giving as a response to stakeholder demands for corporate social engagement (Marinetto, 1999) [15], and to using philanthropic initiatives to advance business interests through strategic alliances with marketing, government affairs, research and development, and human-resources functions (Porter and Kramer, 2002) [16]. Over the past few years, companies have increasingly turned to corporate philanthropy as a valuable strategy to increase their competitive advantage.
With the growing interest in corporate charitable giving among industry and academia, there is a substantial body of literature on corporate philanthropy motivation. A number of studies on the motivation of charitable giving and its impact on financial performance have yielded rich results (Porter and Kramer, 2002; J. L. Campbell, 2007; Godfrey, 2005) [16,20,21]. In the complex and changing economic environment, the improvement of innovation performance is a manifestation of the enhanced technological strength of enterprises. Due to the scarcity of resources and the limitation of technology, the resources needed for enterprise innovation often cannot be obtained on their own, so external resource supplement and policy support is crucial. The essence of corporate profit-maximization determines that the motivation of corporate charitable giving is to obtain resource compensation, reduce government regulation and obtain better political resources. However, most of the existing literature always focuses on the determinants of corporate charitable giving and the motivations for giving, while few scholars relate the impact of charitable giving to the associated economic consequences. Whether charitable giving occurs out of altruism or strategic decision-making, it can lead to a mutual exchange of resources that can boost innovation. A general overview of research on corporate-charitable-giving motives is shown in Table 3.
Table 3. A General Review of Research on Corporate-Charitable-Giving Motivations.
| Research Theme: Concept | |
|---|---|
| Level of Analysis | Key Ideas |
| The altruism of corporate charitable giving | Altruistic motives are the main reason for corporate charitable giving. (Cowton 1987) [22] The altruistic model of corporate philanthropy is considered to be a non-strategic interpretation of corporate giving. Companies use social standards as the basis for correct, good and just social action. Firms engage in altruistic philanthropy with the single goal of helping others. (Useem 1988; Sharfman 1994) [23,24] One possible motivation is that a person actually prefers the public benefit provided by the donation. In this case, the money belonging to the charity has a utility (or reward value) that is independent of the individual’s contribution. This preference for public goods can be considered “altruism”, and if this is the only motivation for the donation, the behavior is called “pure altruism”. (Andreoni 1989) [25] There is an ethical element to the decision to engage in corporate philanthropy that cannot be ignored. (Shaw and Post 1993) [26] Despite its noble goals, the altruistic model itself is often not a strong explanation for corporate philanthropy, even in the most diverse societies, which is because it ignores the profit maximization goals and other strategic objectives of corporations. (Neiheisel 1994) [27] Corporate philanthropy can be driven by factors such as the sense of aesthetic pleasure. (File and Prince 1998) [28] The study shows that firms who have a history of giving to charity cite altruistic motives for their behavior. (Campbell et al., 1999) [29] Pro-social behavior theorists claim that managers’ behavior is also motivated by ethical norms, which is a strong reason for corporate giving. (Valor 2006) [30] Corporate philanthropy may be the result of top management’s values of benevolence and integrity. (Choi and Wang 2007) [31] |
| The strategic nature of corporate charitable giving | Many companies which have a strong sense of corporate social responsibility, however, are turning away from traditional giving and toward a more market-driven strategic management, bottom-line approach to philanthropy. (Mescon and Tilson 1987) [32] |
| The strategic nature of corporate charitable giving | Profit maximization is an important motivation driving corporate charitable giving. (Navarro 1988) [33] Managers use corporate philanthropy to promote management and corporate interests. (Haley 1991) [34] From a strategic perspective, corporate philanthropy can be further divided into economic or political dimensions. (Neiheisel 1994; Young and Burlingame 1996) [9,27] When companies engage in philanthropy in a more strategic and professional way, they can not only do work that has a greater impact on society, but they can also create tangible and intangible benefits for themselves in terms of goodwill, employee morale and public support. (Collins 1995) [35] Firms engage in philanthropic activities as a means of improving the financial performance of their organizations. (Sanchez 2000) [36] While corporate violations of environmental and labor regulations can reduce their public image, charitable giving can reduce the extent of the decline. (Williams and Barrett 2000) [37] Corporate philanthropy has a positive impact on corporate financial performance because decisions about charitable giving can strategically enhance a firm’s image and reputation (Porter and Kramer 2002; Godfrey 2005) [16,21] Firms are becoming increasingly strategic in their philanthropic activities. (Saiia et al., 2003) [38] Some companies are increasingly emphasizing corporate charitable giving as a strategic tool. (Patten 2008) [39] High social sentiment and politically-related economic motivations should trigger a more efficient market reaction to corporate philanthropic involvement, which could then address more directly and effectively the strategic motivation and the “insurance-like” protection property of reputational capital behind corporate philanthropy. (Gao et al., 2012) [40] Managed rent withdrawals are motivated as corporate donations. (Masulis and Reza 2015) [41] Corporate reputation effects emphasize on altruistic motivation, while strategic philanthropy focuses more on egoism. (Xu et al., 2017) [42] Corporate decisions to be charitable are not based solely on purely philanthropic motives, but depend more on the source of revenue. (Oh et al., 2018) [43] When controlling shareholders intend to transfer wealth out of the company, they may use the company’s resources for charitable giving. (Chen et al., 2018) [44] |
2. The Altruism of Corporate Charitable Giving
企业慈善事业的利他主义模式（沙夫曼，1994;Useem，1988）[23，24]被认为是对企业捐赠的非战略解释。根据这一理论，企业将社会标准作为正确、良好和公正的社会行动的基础。公司从事利他慈善事业的唯一目标是帮助他人，因此慈善事业被认为独立于产生利润的运营压力。正如以前的研究人员所指出的（Shaw and Post，1993）[26]，参与企业慈善事业的决定有一个不容忽视的道德因素。先前的研究发现，企业慈善事业可以由审美愉悦感（File和Prince，1998）[28]或利他主义（Campbell等人，1999）[29]等因素驱动。公司有义务参与企业慈善事业，而不是出于任何自利的财务考虑（Shaw and Post，1993）[26]。总之，有大量文献表明，从事慈善事业的决定是由道德义务驱动的。
正如Sharfman（1994）[24]在利他主义模型中指出的那样，慈善事业的本质是道德的。因此，管理者有道德责任，以促进社会整体福利的方式分配公司资源，无论这些行为是否带来具体结果，例如增加利润或提升形象。Choi and Wang （2007） [31] 断言，企业慈善事业可能是最高管理层仁慈和正直价值观的结果。除了经济原因，亲社会行为理论家声称，管理者的行为也是由道德规范驱动的，这是企业给予的有力理由（Valor，2006）[30]。从这个角度来看，企业慈善捐赠的动机可以归类为利他主义。尽管有崇高的目标，但利他主义模式本身往往不是企业慈善事业的有力解释，即使在最多样化的社会中也是如此，因为它忽视了企业的利润最大化目标和其他战略目标（Neiheisel，1994）[27]。
3. 企业慈善捐赠的战略性质
在战略性质的层面上，公司慈善事业的战略动机是与任何其他公司职能一样，为直接的货币利益做出贡献。从战略角度来看，企业慈善事业可以进一步分为经济或政治层面（Neiheisel，1994年;杨和伯林格姆，1996）[9，27]。战略慈善事业的经济学表明，公司从事慈善活动是改善其组织财务绩效的一种手段（Sanchez，2000）[36]，而政治观点是公司从事企业慈善事业是因为关键环境行为者施加的政治和制度压力（Neiheisel，1994）[27]。
基于前述研究，企业慈善的战略动机可以从以下两个角度来解释。首先，全球竞争加剧要求企业通过各种渠道建立竞争优势。企业慈善事业可以帮助企业获得品牌认可和忠诚度，将自己宣传为“对社会负责”的公司。其次，取消政府机构和削减以前支持艺术和社会服务的国家预算刺激了志愿机构和私人基金会的发展。随着政府支持的减少，越来越多的私人志愿组织正试图从私营公司筹集资金。反过来，这些公司成立了基金会来传递这些要求。
在企业慈善捐赠的研究中，许多研究都集中在慈善捐赠对企业价值、财务业绩和其他因素的影响上，作为提升企业价值的手段。当慈善捐赠被视为与公司相关的营销的一部分时，它通常与公司绩效的改善直接相关。一些学者认为，企业慈善事业对企业财务业绩有积极影响，因为有关慈善捐赠的决定可以战略性地提升公司的形象和声誉（Godfrey，2005;波特和克莱默，2002）[16，21]。同时，企业慈善捐赠通常作为企业从资源依赖的角度降低与资源获取相关的风险的一种手段（Haley，1991）[34]。
此外，企业还试图通过慈善捐赠创造积极的社会形象，以减轻或抵消其他领域的负面社会影响。例如，Williams和Barrett（2000）[37]研究了企业慈善捐赠计划对违反EPA（环境保护局）和OSHA（职业安全与健康管理局）法规的公司数量与其公众形象之间关联的影响，并发现虽然企业违反环境和劳动法规会降低其公众形象，但慈善捐赠可以减少下降的程度。因此，与CSR的观点相反（Carroll，1991）[45]，公司可能会增加慈善捐赠以保持其积极的社会形象，而不是将资源用于纠正其他领域的负面社会影响。
This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/su142315603
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