In this paper, I study the conditions under which a CSR leader, that is a firm which commits to invest in socially responsible activities prior to its competitor, can develop a first-mover advantage. A price-setting duopoly market with horizontally differentiated products is considered, where firms can increase the willingness to pay of the consumers of their products by investing in socially responsible activities. It is shown that if the investment in CSR is perfectly specific to the CSR leader and does not spill over to the CSR follower, the CSR leader achieves higher profits. Hence, a first-mover advantage arises. If however, CSR investment spills over to and hence benefits also the CSR follower by increasing the follower sales, then a second-mover advantage might arise for the follower. A characterization is provided for the influence of the intensity of competition and the level of spillovers on the relative and absolute level of CSR activities and the firms’ incentives to engage in CSR.

在本文中，我研究了CSR负责人（即致力于在竞争对手之前投资于社会责任活动的公司）可以发展先发优势的条件。考虑具有水平差异化产品的定价双头垄断市场，在该市场中，企业可以通过投资于对社会负责的活动来提高其产品消费者的支付意愿。结果表明，如果对CSR的投资完全是CSR领导者特有的，而没有溢出到CSR追随者身上，则CSR领导者可以获得更高的利润。因此，产生了先发优势。但是，如果CSR投资溢出到CSR追随者，从而通过增加追随者的销售而使CSR追随者受益，那么追随者可能会获得第二举动的优势。