IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/corsem/v31y2024i1p540-554.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The influence of corporate philanthropic donations on private investors' valuation judgments: Experimental evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Jochen Theis
  • Marvin Nipper
  • Marco Meier

Abstract

Corporate donations towards disaster relief efforts, often called corporate philanthropic disaster relief (CPDR), are commonplace practice and one critically observed subcategory of CSR, with high visibility in the global media. We investigate whether private investors value firms differently based on their perception of firm's engagement in CPDR. Therefore, we created an experimental investment scenario in which we manipulate the magnitude of a hypothetical Firm Y's CPDR efforts to evaluate investment decisions of private investors recruited from Amazon's Cloud Research platform. Our findings suggest that higher CPDR generally affects private investors' assessment of a firm's value positively. Using a structural equation model and the CSR skepticism concept to examine private investors motive attribution to firms' CPDR, we find that private investors perceive high CPDR as an indicator for honest and values‐driven corporate social behavior and a low CPDR as an ingratiating attempt to win favor. Thus, we extend prior research by unveiling through which channels of impact CPDR potentially affects firm value and find an explanation why CPDR can have adverse effects on firm value.

Suggested Citation

  • Jochen Theis & Marvin Nipper & Marco Meier, 2024. "The influence of corporate philanthropic donations on private investors' valuation judgments: Experimental evidence," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(1), pages 540-554, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:corsem:v:31:y:2024:i:1:p:540-554
    DOI: 10.1002/csr.2584
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.2584
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/csr.2584?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Liang, Hao & Renneboog, Luc, 2017. "On the foundations of corporate social responsibility," Other publications TiSEM c6821f0a-e7f0-41da-adba-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    2. Julie Pirsch & Shruti Gupta & Stacy Grau, 2007. "A Framework for Understanding Corporate Social Responsibility Programs as a Continuum: An Exploratory Study," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 70(2), pages 125-140, January.
    3. Alan Muller & Gail Whiteman, 2009. "Exploring the Geography of Corporate Philanthropic Disaster Response: A Study of Fortune Global 500 Firms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 84(4), pages 605-605, February.
    4. John Horton & David Rand & Richard Zeckhauser, 2011. "The online laboratory: conducting experiments in a real labor market," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(3), pages 399-425, September.
    5. Boush, David M & Friestad, Marian & Rose, Gregory M, 1994. "Adolescent Skepticism toward TV Advertising and Knowledge of Advertiser Tactics," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 21(1), pages 165-175, June.
    6. Carroll, Archie B., 1991. "The pyramid of corporate social responsibility: Toward the moral management of organizational stakeholders," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 39-48.
    7. Campbell, Margaret C & Kirmani, Amna, 2000. "Consumers' Use of Persuasion Knowledge: The Effects of Accessibility and Cognitive Capacity on Perceptions of an Influence Agent," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 27(1), pages 69-83, June.
    8. Matthew J C Crump & John V McDonnell & Todd M Gureckis, 2013. "Evaluating Amazon's Mechanical Turk as a Tool for Experimental Behavioral Research," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(3), pages 1-18, March.
    9. Skarmeas, Dionysis & Leonidou, Constantinos N., 2013. "When consumers doubt, Watch out! The role of CSR skepticism," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(10), pages 1831-1838.
    10. Friestad, Marian & Wright, Peter, 1994. "The Persuasion Knowledge Model: How People Cope with Persuasion Attempts," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 21(1), pages 1-31, June.
    11. Michael Berlemann & Max Friedrich Steinhardt, 2017. "Climate Change, Natural Disasters, and Migration—a Survey of the Empirical Evidence," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 63(4), pages 353-385.
    12. Tatyana Deryugina, 2017. "The Fiscal Cost of Hurricanes: Disaster Aid versus Social Insurance," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 168-198, August.
    13. Joerg Dietz & Emmanuelle Kleinlogel, 2014. "Wage Cuts and Managers’ Empathy: How a Positive Emotion Can Contribute to Positive Organizational Ethics in Difficult Times," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 119(4), pages 461-472, February.
    14. repec:cup:judgdm:v:5:y:2010:i:5:p:411-419 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Heli Wang & Jaepil Choi & Jiatao Li, 2008. "Too Little or Too Much? Untangling the Relationship Between Corporate Philanthropy and Firm Financial Performance," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(1), pages 143-159, February.
    16. Alan Muller & Roman Kräussl, 2011. "The Value of Corporate Philanthropy During Times of Crisis: The Sensegiving Effect of Employee Involvement," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 103(2), pages 203-220, October.
    17. Robert G. Eccles & George Serafeim & Michael P. Krzus, 2011. "Market Interest in Nonfinancial Information," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 23(4), pages 113-127, December.
    18. Becker-Olsen, Karen L. & Cudmore, B. Andrew & Hill, Ronald Paul, 2006. "The impact of perceived corporate social responsibility on consumer behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 46-53, January.
    19. Dennis Patten, 2008. "Does the Market Value Corporate Philanthropy? Evidence from the Response to the 2004 Tsunami Relief Effort," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 81(3), pages 599-607, September.
    20. Violina P. Rindova & Charles J. Fombrun, 1999. "Constructing competitive advantage: the role of firm–constituent interactions," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(8), pages 691-710, August.
    21. W. Brooke Elliott & Stephanie M. Grant & Kristina M. Rennekamp, 2017. "How Disclosure Features of Corporate Social Responsibility Reports Interact with Investor Numeracy to Influence Investor Judgments," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(3), pages 1596-1621, September.
    22. Jennifer C. Chen & Dennis M. Patten & Robin Roberts, 2008. "Corporate Charitable Contributions: A Corporate Social Performance or Legitimacy Strategy?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 82(1), pages 131-144, September.
    23. Liyin Jin & Yanqun He, 2018. "How the frequency and amount of corporate donations affect consumer perception and behavioral responses," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 46(6), pages 1072-1088, November.
    24. Hao Liang & Luc Renneboog, 2017. "On the Foundations of Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(2), pages 853-910, April.
    25. Shuo Wang & Yuhui Gao & Gerard Hodgkinson & Denise Rousseau & Patrick Flood, 2015. "Opening the Black Box of CSR Decision Making: A Policy-Capturing Study of Charitable Donation Decisions in China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 128(3), pages 665-683, May.
    26. Gutsche, Gunnar & Ziegler, Andreas, 2019. "Which private investors are willing to pay for sustainable investments? Empirical evidence from stated choice experiments," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 193-214.
    27. Stephen Brammer & Andrew Millington, 2008. "Does it pay to be different? An analysis of the relationship between corporate social and financial performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(12), pages 1325-1343, December.
    28. Joëlle Vanhamme & Bas Grobben, 2009. "“Too Good to be True!”. The Effectiveness of CSR History in Countering Negative Publicity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 85(2), pages 273-283, April.
    29. Berinsky, Adam J. & Huber, Gregory A. & Lenz, Gabriel S., 2012. "Evaluating Online Labor Markets for Experimental Research: Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 351-368, July.
    30. Amy J. Hillman & Gerald D. Keim, 2001. "Shareholder value, stakeholder management, and social issues: what's the bottom line?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 125-139, February.
    31. Baruch Lev & Christine Petrovits & Suresh Radhakrishnan, 2010. "Is doing good good for you? how corporate charitable contributions enhance revenue growth," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 182-200, February.
    32. Alan Muller & Gail Whiteman, 2009. "Exploring the Geography of Corporate Philanthropic Disaster Response: A Study of Fortune Global 500 Firms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 84(4), pages 589-603, February.
    33. Paul C. Godfrey & Craig B. Merrill & Jared M. Hansen, 2009. "The relationship between corporate social responsibility and shareholder value: an empirical test of the risk management hypothesis," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 425-445, April.
    34. Chen, Wei & Han, Jun & Tan, Hun-Tong, 2016. "Investor reactions to management earnings guidance attributions: The effects of news valence, attribution locus, and outcome controllability," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 83-95.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alan Muller & Roman Kräussl, 2011. "The Value of Corporate Philanthropy During Times of Crisis: The Sensegiving Effect of Employee Involvement," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 103(2), pages 203-220, October.
    2. Hanwen Chen & Siyi Liu & Xin Liu & Daoguang Yang, 2022. "Adversity Tries Friends: A Multilevel Analysis of Corporate Philanthropic Response to the Local Spread of COVID-19 in China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 177(3), pages 585-612, May.
    3. Leon Zolotoy & Don O’Sullivan & Jill Klein, 2019. "Character Cues and Contracting Costs: The Relationship Between Philanthropy and the Cost of Capital," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 154(2), pages 497-515, January.
    4. Kellie Liket & Ana Simaens, 2015. "Battling the Devolution in the Research on Corporate Philanthropy," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 126(2), pages 285-308, January.
    5. Chang-Dae Ham & Jeesun Kim, 2019. "The Role of CSR in Crises: Integration of Situational Crisis Communication Theory and the Persuasion Knowledge Model," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(2), pages 353-372, August.
    6. Saridakis, Charalampos & Angelidou, Sofia & Woodside, Arch G., 2023. "How historical and social aspirations reshape the relationship between corporate financial performance and corporate social responsibility," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    7. Arthur Gautier & Anne-Claire Pache, 2015. "Research on Corporate Philanthropy: A Review and Assessment," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 126(3), pages 343-369, February.
    8. Skarmeas, Dionysis & Leonidou, Constantinos N., 2013. "When consumers doubt, Watch out! The role of CSR skepticism," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(10), pages 1831-1838.
    9. Yongqiang Gao & Haibin Yang & Taïeb Hafsi, 2019. "Corporate giving and corporate financial performance: the S-curve relationship," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 687-713, September.
    10. Frederik Plewnia & Edeltraud Guenther, 2017. "The benefits of doing good: a meta-analysis of corporate philanthropy business outcomes and its implications for management control," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 347-376, October.
    11. Joseph A. Johnson & Jochen Theis & Adam Vitalis & Donald Young, 2020. "The Influence of Firms' Emissions Management Strategy Disclosures on Investors' Valuation Judgments†," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(2), pages 642-664, June.
    12. Lei Xu & Xiaoning Guo & Yan Liu & Xiaochen Sun & Jie Ji, 2022. "How Does Corporate Charitable Giving Affect Enterprise Innovation? A Literature Review and Research Directions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-21, November.
    13. Ateeq ur Rehman Irshad & Nabeel Safdar & Wajiha Manzoor, 2023. "Predicting Efficiency of Innovative Disaster Response Practices: Case Study of China’s Corporate Philanthropy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-15, January.
    14. Ming Jia & Zhe Zhang, 2013. "Managerial Ownership and Corporate Social Performance: Evidence from Privately Owned Chinese Firms' Response to the Sichuan Earthquake," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(5), pages 257-274, September.
    15. Christopher Groening & Vamsi K. Kanuri, 2018. "Investor Reactions to Concurrent Positive and Negative Stakeholder News," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 149(4), pages 833-856, June.
    16. Jun Chen & Wang Dong & Jamie Tong & Feida Zhang, 2018. "Corporate Philanthropy and Tunneling: Evidence from China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 135-157, June.
    17. Simona Romani & Silvia Grappi & Richard P. Bagozzi, 2016. "Corporate Socially Responsible Initiatives and Their Effects on Consumption of Green Products," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 135(2), pages 253-264, May.
    18. Hans B. Christensen & Luzi Hail & Christian Leuz, 2021. "Mandatory CSR and sustainability reporting: economic analysis and literature review," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 1176-1248, September.
    19. Cowan, Adrian & Huang, Chia-Hsing & Padmanabhan, Prasad, 2016. "Why do some US manufacturing and service firms with international operations choose to give internationally whereas others opt to give only in the United States?," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 408-418.
    20. Wang Shuo & Gao Yuhui, 2016. "What do we know about corporate social responsibility research? a content analysis," The Irish Journal of Management, Sciendo, vol. 35(1), pages 1-16, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:corsem:v:31:y:2024:i:1:p:540-554. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1535-3966 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.