We examine whether a strong alignment of the chief executive officer (CEO) and shareholders wealth induces or restrains the firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement. CSR can enhance shareholders wealth consistent with stakeholder theory. However, CEOs maximizing their own utilities have an incentive to overinvest corporate resources for CSR engagement at shareholders' expense. Therefore, the strong alignment of the CEO and shareholders wealth is expected to lead the CEO to engage less in some CSR activities, particularly those are questionable to enhance shareholders wealth or those are only good for the CEO's private benefit. Empirically, we find that firms with strongly aligned CEOs are less likely to strengthen CSR activities for external stakeholders such as the environment, community, and human rights. This suggests that strengthening CSR for external stakeholders appears to be the consequence of agency problem rather than stakeholder theory. Overall, we argue that CEO-shareholders wealth alignment has a non-monotonic impact on CSR activities, and it can effectively mitigate the agency problem by restraining overinvestment in some CSR activities that may harm shareholders wealth.

中文翻译：

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企业社会责任和 CEO 与股东财富的一致性：强一致性会引发还是抑制企业社会责任？

我们研究了首席执行官 (CEO) 与股东财富的高度一致是否会引发或限制公司的企业社会责任 (CSR) 参与。企业社会责任可以增加股东财富，符合利益相关者理论。然而，最大化自身效用的 CEO 有动机以股东为代价过度投资公司资源以实现 CSR 参与。因此，CEO 和股东财富的强一致性预计会导致 CEO 较少参与一些 CSR 活动，特别是那些对增加股东财富有疑问或只对 CEO 的私人利益有利的活动。根据经验，我们发现 CEO 高度一致的公司不太可能加强针对环境、社区和人权等外部利益相关者的 CSR 活动。这表明，加强外部利益相关者的企业社会责任似乎是代理问题而非利益相关者理论的结果。总体而言，我们认为 CEO-股东财富对齐对企业社会责任活动具有非单调影响，它可以通过抑制某些可能损害股东财富的企业社会责任活动的过度投资来有效缓解代理问题。