중국의 제도 발전 수준이 기업의 CSR 활동과 재무성과에 미치는 영향

The Effect of Institutional Development on Corporate Social Responsibility and Financial Performance in China: Focused on Institutional Theory

Purpose The purpose of this study is to understand the effect of institutional development level on corporate social responsibility activity and financial performance. Design/Methodology/Approach - The research focuses on three main variables, which are the institutional development level, the firm’s compliance level, and the firm’s financial performance. We collected 15,751 firm-level data, 3,792 CSR data listed in China’s A market, and 31 province and city-level data from China. The analysis period was from 2009 to 2015, and Pooled OLS Regression was used to test the relationships among the variables. Findings -The results showed that the institutional development level had a positive effect on the firms’ CSR activity. In addition, both the institutional development level and CSR activity positively influenced firms’ financial performance. Research Implications - This study took into account a level of institutional compliance when the institutional development when investigating the effect of CSR activity level on corporate financial performance. Thus, this study has an academic contribution by demonstrating that CSR activity has a positive effect depending on the institutional development for each firm. The findings also have valuable insights into the firms by suggesting the importance of considering the strategic CSR activity according to institutional development.