The benefits of doing good: a meta-analysis of corporate philanthropy business outcomes and its implications for management control

How and When Does Corporate Giving Lead to Getting? An Investigation of the Relationship Between Corporate Philanthropy and Relative Competitive Performance from a Micro-process Perspective

“…However, it may promote corporate competitive power (a more inclusive firm performance including financial performance, market performance, innovation performance, etc.) by previously proposed paths, such as positive customer relations, government support, and high employee identity (Plewnia and Guenther 2017;Luo 2005;Wang et al 2016). Thus, we propose the following hypothesis:…”

“…Numerous scholars asserted a positive link between corporate ethics and firm performance and offered convincing underlying explanations (Plewnia and Guenther 2017;Wang et al 2016). For example, many empirical studies have revealed that corporate philanthropy and other social performance will promote corporate financial performance by increasing corporate ethical reputation (Bhattacharya and Sen 2003;Luo 2005;Roberts and Dowling 2002).…”

“…Chun et al (2013) also found that corporate ethics to society (i.e., corporate philanthropy) neither directly nor indirectly influences firm financial performance. Some researchers also proposed a negative philanthropy-performance link (Plewnia and Guenther 2017). They believe that corporate philanthropy will mainly cause costs instead of benefiting performance, especially when managers donate firm resources to enhance their personal image (Cowan et al 2013;Schaltegger and Burritt 2018).…”

“…Furthermore, the marginally significant relationship may denote the geographical characteristic of the ethics-performance link because the direct link between corporate ethics and performance may be relatively weak in emerging economies (Chun et al 2013;Sandholtz and Koetzle 2000). In addition, extant literature demonstrates that the relationship between corporate ethics and firm performance is largely contingent on external factors (Plewnia and Guenther 2017;Wang et al 2016). Our results present the significant effect of corporate philanthropy on RCP after considering the contingent factor (i.e., when WLBP is high, β = 0.28, p < 0.001).…”

“…Corporate philanthropy is an integral and typical component of corporate social performance, and it is often defined as the voluntary donation of firm resources to society (Carroll 1979;Plewnia and Guenther 2017;Wang et al 2016). Recently, scholars have regarded corporate philanthropy as a strategy to achieve synergistic social and economic performance (Saiia et al 2003).…”