Based on a large international sample, we show how the decision-making power of CEOs in conjunction with prevailing institutional discretion relates to corporate resources allocated toward CSR strategy. First, especially with greater institutional discretion, powerful CEOs pursue exaggerated CSR strategies aiming at reputational gains for their private benefit, while not necessarily bearing the costs of their decisions. Second, such CEO-induced CSR enhancements turn out to be defective CSR overinvestment, ultimately entailing a decrease in firm value. By complementing organizational factors with institutional characteristics, we refute previous contradicting empirical evidence regarding a significant CEO effect and show a conditional relation between CEO power and CSR choice. Our results are robust to alternative sample compositions, different variable definitions, and various methodological specifications.

中文翻译：

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CEO权力和制度自由裁量权对CSR投资的影响

基于一个大型国际样本，我们展示了 CEO 的决策权与普遍的机构自由裁量权如何与分配给 CSR 战略的公司资源相关。首先，特别是在机构自由裁量权更大的情况下，有权有势的 CEO 追求夸大的企业社会责任战略，旨在为其个人利益谋取声誉，而不必承担决策成本。其次，这种由 CEO 引起的 CSR 增强结果证明是有缺陷的 CSR 过度投资，最终导致公司价值下降。通过补充具有制度特征的组织因素，我们驳斥了先前关于显着 CEO 效应的相互矛盾的经验证据，并表明 CEO 权力与 CSR 选择之间存在条件关系。我们的结果对替代样品组成是稳健的，