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CEOs’ Poverty Experience and Corporate Social Responsibility: Are CEOs Who Have Experienced Poverty More Generous?

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Abstract

This study examines whether the chief executive officer’s (CEO’s) poverty experience has an impact on firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR). We find that firms’ CSR performance increases with CEOs’ poverty experience; specifically, firms with CEOs who experienced early-life poverty are associated with more socially responsible activities and fewer socially irresponsible activities, such as on-the-job consumption, and are more associated with key stakeholder-related rather than community-related CSR. We further find that the positive relationship between the CEO’s poverty experience and CSR strengthens for well-educated or powerful CEOs. Our evidence is consistent with our conjecture that CEOs who experienced early-life poverty have stronger compassion and prosocial psychology. Consequently, these CEOs are more willing to make long-term investments in socially beneficial activities, leading to better CSR performance, which further confirms the altruistic motivation of CSR.

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Notes

  1. By default, the weight of investor-related responsibility is 30%, that of employee-related responsibility is 15%, that of environment-related responsibility is 20%, that of community-related responsibility is 20%, and the combined weight of supplier- and customer-related responsibility is 15%. Especially, for the consumer industry, the weight of employee-oriented responsibility accounts for 10%, the combined weight of supplier- and customer-oriented responsibility accounts for 20%, and other indicators remain unchanged. For the manufacturing industry, the weight of environment-oriented responsibility accounts for 30%, that of community-oriented accounts for 10%, and that of other indicators remain unchanged. For the service industry, the weight of environment-oriented responsibility accounts for 10%, that of community-oriented responsibility accounts for 30%, and that of other indicators remain unchanged.

  2. The determination of national poor key counties is based on the average annual net income of local residents. Among them, in the list for 2012, the standard of per-capita low income is 1300 yuan, that for old areas and minority border areas is 1500 yuan; the per-capital GDP is 2700 yuan; and the per-capita financial income is 120 yuan. These income standards are set according to two-thirds of the respective median. The national poor key counties should not only meet these low-income conditions at the same time, but also be the poorest counties obtained by weighted average of various kinds of income according to the weight setting of “631”.

  3. The NPC is one of two sessions in China and is held annually. Citizens elect their representatives through democratic elections and exercise state power centrally. According to the provisions of the Constitution, the NPC has full power and the highest status, and it primarily functions to exercise the state’s legislative power. The NPC is composed of deputies elected by provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the central government, the Special Administrative Region, and the army for a 5-year term.

  4. The CPPCC was jointly founded by the Communist Party of China and various democratic parties, non-Party democrats, people’s organizations, and patriots from all walks of life. This conference is an important form of democracy, and its tasks include political consultations and democratic supervision by all Party members. The CPPCC delegates are elected by nominations within parties and organizations, and the Standing Committee in the CPPCC has the right to vote for the final deputies.

  5. The 985 Project refers to a higher education initiative implemented by the Chinese government, involving the construction of several world-class universities and a group of internationally renowned high-level research universities. The universities included in the 985 Project are typically called the “985 colleges.” In 1999, the 985 Project was officially launched, and the first phase of the project was implemented in Tsinghua University and Peking University. As of 2011, no new universities were included in the project; at present, the project includes 46 universities.

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Funding

The authors wish to acknowledge the valuable support provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71602061), the Soft Science Research Program of Guangdong (2019A101002094), and the Project of Philosophy and Social Sciences of Guangzhou (2020GZGJ12).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology, Room 317, Shantou Alunmi Building, 381 Wushan Rd., Tianhe District, Guangzhou, 510641, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China

    Shan Xu & Panyi Ma

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  1. Shan Xu
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  2. Panyi Ma
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Correspondence to Shan Xu.

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Appendix

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See Table 12.

Table 12 Variable definitions
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Xu, S., Ma, P. CEOs’ Poverty Experience and Corporate Social Responsibility: Are CEOs Who Have Experienced Poverty More Generous?. J Bus Ethics 180, 747–776 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04899-w

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