Common ownership mode decision with corporate social responsibility in a three-stage Stackelberg model with two followers

This study constructs a three-stage Stackelberg model incorporating common ownership and corporate social responsibility (CSR), examines the optimal CSR levels and their influencing factors, and reveals common ownership mode decisions. The results indicate that consumer sensitivity influences the optimal CSR level in a non-monotonic way, initially increasing and subsequently decreasing, with the threshold varying across common ownership modes. Expanding market size, lowering marginal costs, and increasing shareholding levels can reduce the optimal CSR level. Both common ownership mode and consumer sensitivity affect profits. Regardless of the changes in the cost function, as consumer sensitivity decreases, the leading firm shows a greater tendency to adopt common ownership. The government can influence firms’ CSR levels by regulating consumer sensitivity, while firms should establish a dynamic adjustment mechanism for CSR decision-making that responds to market factors such as market size, marginal costs, and shareholding levels.