The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility Decoupling on Substantive Innovation
The proportion of substantive innovation carried in Chinese enterprises is relatively low,and the existing researches rarely involve how corporate social responsibility(CSR)decoupling affects substantive innovation.Based on the theory of organizational decoupling,this paper explores the effect of CSR decoupling which is implemented as impression management strategy by enterprises on substantive innovation rather than the effect of CSR itself,providing a new theoretical perspective for interpreting the innovation dilemma caused by CSR.Conducting multiple regression analyses with a sample of 356 A-share listed manufacturing companies that disclosed CSR reports in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2009 to 2019,the paper explores the impact of CSR decoupling on substantive innovation,and further examines the moderating effects of heavily polluting industries,management power and internal control.Data sources include archival dates from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research(CSMAR),China Center for Economic Research(CCER),CSR report ratings from RKS,and internal control ratings from DIB.The test results show that there is a negative correlation between CSR decoupling and substantive innovation.The results of the examination for heavily polluting and non-heavy polluting industries support the hypothesis based on the legitimacy perspective rather than the hypothesis based on the attribution theory,it is found that in heavily polluting industries,the negative relationship between CSR decoupling and substantive innovation is weakened.The results also suggest that increased management power will strengthen the negative relationship between CSR decoupling and substantive innovation.However,the moderating effect of internal control on the relationship between CSR decoupling and substantive innovation has not been verified.These findings suggest that in order to promote Chinese enterprises to carry out substantive innovation more effectively,it is necessary to further improve the CSR disclosure system,specially strengthen the supervision of CSR disclosure of enterprises in heavy pollution industries,and urge enterprises to improve the internal control system to restrain the abuse of CSR decoupling strategy caused by management power.
CSR decouplingsubstantive innovationorganizational decoupling theoryheavily polluting industriesmanagement powerinternal control
万方数据
维普
