The impact of corporate social responsibility decoupling on financial performance: the role of customer structure and operational slack

Chang He, Fu Jia*, Liukai Wang, Lujie Chen, Kieran Fernandes

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Purpose: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) decoupling indicates a misalignment between how firms report CSR and what firms actually practice with respect to CSR. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between CSR decoupling and financial performance and the factors affecting this relationship. Design/methodology/approach: This paper collects and combines secondary panel data from multiple sources of Chinese listed firms from 2008 to 2020 to test the direct impact of CSR decoupling on firms’ financial performance and the moderating role of customer structure and operational slack. Findings: This paper finds that CSR decoupling is negatively associated with firms’ financial performance. These findings further suggest that the negative relationship can be suppressed by customer stability and operational slack, but amplified by customer concentration. These conclusions remain robust to alternate measures of independent and dependent variables and narrower samples. Originality/value: In the literature, the effect of CSR on firms’ financial performance is inconclusive. This is the first study to examine the impact of CSR decoupling on firms’ financial performance and the factors affecting this relationship. This paper contributes to the CSR decoupling literature from an operations and supply chain management perspective.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1859-1890
Number of pages32
JournalInternational Journal of Operations and Production Management
Volume43
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 28 Nov 2023

Keywords

  • CSR decoupling
  • Customer structure
  • Financial performance
  • Operational slack

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