科研管理

科研管理 ›› 2021, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (5): 143-152.

• 论文 • 上一篇    下一篇

社会信任有助于企业履行社会责任吗？

阳镇1,2,凌鸿尘3,陈劲1,2   

  1. 1.清华大学 经济管理学院，北京100084；
    2.清华大学 技术创新研究中心，北京100084；
    3.江西财经大学 产业经济研究院，江西 南昌330013

  • 收稿日期:2020-03-03 修回日期:2020-09-09 出版日期:2021-05-20 发布日期:2021-05-19
  • 通讯作者: 凌鸿尘
  • 基金资助:
    国家哲学社会科学重大基金项目(17ZDA082，2017.06—2021.06)；国家自然科学基金应急管理专项项目(71941026,2019.06—2020.09)；国家社会科学基金重点项目（18AGL011,2018.10—2021.10）。

Does social trust help enterprises fulfill their social responsibilities?

Yang Zhen1,2, Ling Hongcheng3, Chen Jin1,2   

  1. 1. School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; 
    2. Research Center for Technological Innovation, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; 
    3. Industrial Economy Research Institute, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang 330013, Jiangxi, China
  • Received:2020-03-03 Revised:2020-09-09 Online:2021-05-20 Published:2021-05-19

摘要： 企业社会责任是企业实现可持续发展的重要实践方式，如何驱动企业可持续性的社会责任行为成为研究的重要议题。社会信任作为宏观经济运行与微观企业市场活动的“润滑剂”，对企业的市场行为与社会行为产生不可忽视的作用。传统的研究主要研究外部正式制度对企业社会责任的影响，忽视了社会信任作为一种非正式制度在驱动企业社会责任实践中产生的重要作用。本文基于2009-2017年中国A股上市公司为研究样本，实证考察了社会信任对企业社会责任的影响效应，并检验了外部正式制度与企业内部高管激励制度在社会信任（非正式制度）与企业社会责任的调节效应；进一步验证了基于工具竞争逻辑主导下的企业社会责任在社会信任与企业创新之间的中介作用，验证企业社会责任的工具价值效应。研究结果表明：（1）社会信任对企业社会责任产生显著的正向影响，异质性分析结果表明在产权、披露环境以及行业追随等方面存在异质性；（2）外部正式制度（市场化环境）在社会信任与企业社会责任之间产生正向调节作用，呈现出正式制度与非正式制度对企业社会责任的协同倍增效应；（3）企业内高管股权激励制度在社会信任与企业社会责任之间产生负向调节作用，呈现出企业内激励制度与企业外非正式制度对企业社会责任的替代效应；（4）企业社会责任在社会信任与企业创新之间产生部分中介作用，即Porter和Kramer（2006）提出的企业社会责任的战略竞争工具效应得到实证结果的支持。本研究在理论层面上基于“内外结合”的视角丰富了企业社会责任驱动因素的研究，拓展了社会信任作用与企业社会行为的影响机制，在实践层面为政府以及企业重新审视社会信任的价值效应提供经验证据，也为企业履行社会责任发挥社会责任的竞争工具效应提供经验启示。

关键词: 社会信任, 企业社会责任, 正式制度, 非正式制度, 高管激励, 企业创新

Abstract:     The evolution process of corporate social responsibility has been nearly 100 years. It has gradually evolved from the necessity and legitimacy of social responsibility behavior whether or not to perform social responsibility to the rationality and social desirability of how to perform social responsibility better and sustainably, the concept of corporate social responsibility has also changed from the concept of moral charity based on businessmen, the concept of social response based on the pressure of stakeholders to the concept of tool competition based on strategic competition and the concept of social responsibility based on platform value co creation and sharing. In this sense, how to better drive enterprises to fulfill social responsibility and more sustainable performance of social responsibility has become a major practical topic of concern and research in academia and industry. From the existing research, although there are multiple perspectives to drive corporate social responsibility, including "from the outside to the inside" external institutional drive and external stakeholders drive, as well as "from the inside out" internal entrepreneurship and managers′ social responsibility cognition to drive corporate social responsibility. 
    However, from the perspective of institution theory, studies have neglected that informal institutional environment, as a "lubricant" in macroeconomic operation and micro enterprise market and social activities, plays an irreplaceable role in regulating enterprise market and social behavior. Although the existing research has focused on the important role of social trust in the market-oriented economic behaviors, such as financing constraints, risk-taking, M&A performance and enterprise innovation, there is a lack of attention on the corporate social responsibility behavior in the sense of corporate social attributes. 
    Based on A-share listed companies in China from 2009 to 2017, this paper empirically examines the impact of social trust on corporate social responsibility, and examines the regulatory effects of external formal system and internal executive incentive institution on social trust (informal system) and corporate social responsibility, and further verifies the corporate social responsibility under the guidance of tool competition logic in society the instrumental value effect between trust and enterprise innovation.
    The results show that: (1) social trust has a significant positive impact on corporate social responsibility. Heterogeneity analysis shows that there are heterogeneity in property rights, disclosure environment and industry follow-up; (2) The external formal system (market-oriented environment) has a positive regulatory role between social trust and corporate social responsibility, showing a synergistic multiplier effect of formal system and informal system on corporate social responsibility; (3) The equity incentive system of executives in enterprises has a negative regulatory role between social trust and corporate social responsibility, showing the substitution effect of incentive system in enterprises and informal system outside enterprises on corporate social responsibility; (4) corporate social responsibility has a partial intermediary role between social trust and corporate innovation, that is, corporate social responsibility proposed by Porter and Kramer (2006). The effect of strategic competition tools is supported by empirical results. 
    This paper finds that the informal institutional environment plays an important role in driving corporate social responsibility, and confirms that the formal institutional environment and the internal incentive institutional environment play an important moderating role between the informal institutional environment and corporate social responsibility, and reveals that social trust is not only a "lubricant" of enterprise market behavior, but also a kind of "lubricant" to standard, incentive and governance corporate social responsibility, which is conducive to the formation of value reciprocal network relationship between enterprises and external stakeholders, and then drives the "moral orientation" and "social self-discipline" of enterprises. 
    Therefore, this paper enriches the research on the driving factors of corporate social responsibility at the theoretical level, especially bridging the shortcomings of the traditional "from outside to inside" external system driven and external stakeholders driven, as well as the "inside out" internal entrepreneurship and managers′ social responsibility awareness drive, and finally verifies the corporate social responsibility as a strategy competition tools can help enterprises obtain innovation resources and promote their innovation performance.

Key words:  social trust, corporate social responsibility (CSR), formal system, informal system, executive incentive, corporate innovation