Corporate Social Responsibility Of Agricultural Firms, Innovation And Financial Performance

The products of agricultural enterprises are closely related to people's daily lives. Agricultural firms are often seen as an important factor in economic growth and job creation. The emerging of implementation issues of agricultural enterprises social responsibility draws more attention from scholars and policy-makers by the high social cost and serious consequences. Previous studies did not emphasize on the corporate social responsibility of agricultural enterprises. There are no consistent conclusion about the relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance. Few researches trace back to the deep-seated problem about how the corporate social responsibility motivation of agricultural firms affect financial performance.This research establishes a theoretical model for the influence of corporate social responsibility motivation of agricultural firms on financial performance based on grounded theory. Then, this paper examines the model by using the data about corporate social performance of 14 agricultural firms selected from Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets. This paper proposes the hypotheses about the relationship between corporate strategic social responsibility and altruistic social responsibility and corporate financial performance by literatures combing method, and then gives empirical test using the data of agricultural listed companies in Hu and Shen market.The result indicates that strategic motivation can improve the financial performance of agricultural firms. Altruistic motivation, for the most part, is found to have a negative effect on financial performance. But it is also impossible for this motivation to promote financial performance if this motivation brought more social reputation for this firm. The production and process innovation have moderating effects on the influence of social responsibility performance on financial performance. In other words, it is more effective to improve financial performance of agricultural corporations if production and process innovation comport with their corporate social responsibility performance. Strategic social responsibility of agricultural enterprises and corporate financial performance can make a significant positive impact on each other. When product innovation and strategic social responsibility are kept in line, the agricultural corporate financial performance can be significantly improved. The findings are helpful for Promotion of sustainable development of agricultural enterprises.