Natural Disasters and Corporate Philanthropy: A Double Movement Perspective

This study examines Chinese corporations’ responses to a sudden natural disaster in terms of their philanthropic donations. We apply Polanyi's double movement perspective to argue that rapid market expansion in an emerging economy causes social problems such as large-income disparities and environmental degradation. This calls forth counterforces advocating social responsibility and sustainability. Such countermovements can be strengthened by a major disaster, especially in the domain of corporate philanthropy. The resulting increase in corporate philanthropy persists long after the disaster, especially for those firms with large intra-firm pay disparities, operating in socially contested industries and located in regions with more social foundations. Using the context of China's 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, we find support for these arguments in a sample of Chinese public firms. 本文研究中国公司对于突发自然灾害的捐款行为。我们采用Polanyi的双向运动视角来阐释该现象。双向运动视角认为新兴经济体市场的迅速扩张会带来贫富悬殊和环境破坏等社会问题，同时这些问题会反过来推动大家支持社会责任和可持续发展。这些反向推动在一场大灾难面前会得到加强，尤其反映在公司捐款行为上。灾后公司捐款的增加会在灾难结束后长时间持续，特别是具有以下特点的公司：公司内部工资差异较大、公司所在行业具有社会争议，公司总部所在地的慈善基金会比较多。本文，发现基于中国上市公司样本在中国2008年汶川地震情境下的捐款数据支持了这些论述。