THE CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY PRICE PREMIUM AS AN ENABLER OF SUBSTANTIVE CSR

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Nardi, Leandro
• 署名单位: Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) Paris
• 刊物名称: ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0363-7425
• DOI: 10.5465/amr.2019.0425
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 282-308
• 关键词: MARKET COMPETITION; PUBLIC-INTEREST; governance; PRODUCTIVITY; management; disclosure; talk

摘要

Research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has investigated the determinants of firms' choices to engage in substantive, as opposed to merely symbolic, CSR. However, scholars have yet to examine the economic incentives governing these choices. In particular, the literature offers little insight into how consumers' willingness to pay a CSR price premium affects the choice between symbolic versus substantive CSR. To address this question, this paper proposes a formal model wherein substantive CSR reduces the negative socioenvironmental externalities associated with firms' products, while consumers vary in their ability to monitor these externalities, and in their preferences for CSR. The paper establishes conditions under which the CSR price premium functions as an enabler of substantive CSR. It also examines howmonitoring intensity, product differentiation, and competitors' CSR engagement choices moderate this enabling effect. For example, when competitors engage in symbolic CSR, higher monitoring increases the enabling effect of the CSR price premiumif substantive CSR sufficiently reduces negative externalities, but decreases it otherwise. Product differentiation and competitors' decisions to engage in substantive CSR have similarly nuanced roles. A further application of the model suggests that CSR communication costs may be instrumental in discouraging all forms of symbolic CSR, including greenwashing and socialwashing.