Research On Corporate Social Responsibility Fulfillment And Debt Risk

For a long time,the economic consequences of Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR)fulfillment had been a hot topic in this field.In the past,most studies focused on the relationship between CSR and corporate performance.In recent years,with the enhancement of public awareness of debt default risk prevention,the impact of CSR fulfillment on corporate debt risk has gradually become an important branch of the economic consequences of CSR fulfillment.The exposure of China's food safety problems,illegal discharge of pollutants and other malignant events has caused great dissatisfaction from all walks of life with the lack of CSR.In order to regulate the social responsibility behavior of listed companies and rebuild the confidence of all sectors of society,relevant departments have successively issued a series of policies and regulations on social responsibility.Under the background of China's economic system in transition,listed companies' active fulfillment of CSR can enable enterprises to obtain the support of more stakeholders,so as to ease the financing constraints.It is not only conducive to reducing the debt risk of enterprises at the micro level,but also conducive to preventing and resolving systemic financial risks at the macro level.It is a practical problem that policy makers and enterprises attach great importance to.Considering that debt concentration,financing constraints and product market competitive advantages are important influencing factors of corporate debt risk,this paper selects the above factors to systematically explore the impact and mechanism of social responsibility performance on debt risk.At the same time,the operation of an enterprise is inseparable from its environment.Therefore,this paper also discusses whether the fulfillment of CSR among enterprises in the same region and industry will infect each other,and the peer effect of CSR fulfillment will affect the debt risk of the industry and region.This study not only enriches the literature in the field of CSR fulfillment and debt risk,but also complements the literature on the economic consequences of CSR fulfillment.It also helps business managers realize that CSR is an important corporate strategy.Finally,it provides some empirical evidence support for policy makers in formulating laws and regulations on CSR.This paper covers the following three aspects:Firstly,it studies the total effect of CSR fulfillment on debt risk.It is found that fulfillment of CSR helps to reduce debt risk.Product market competition can improve the internal governance of enterprises and reduce the degree of information asymmetry,so as to promote the inhibitory effect of social responsibility on debt risk.In addition,the further study found that the CSR fulfillment of the monetary capital layer and the human capital layer has a significantly stronger inhibitory effect on the corporate debt risk than the CSR fulfillment of the social capital layer;CSR fulfillment has a more prominent inhibitory effect on debt risk in areas with higher tax evasion,during the financial crisis,lower social trust and slower marketization.Second,this paper takes the debt concentration,financing constraints and product market competitive advantage as intermediary variables to explore the impact mechanism of CSR fulfillment on corporate debt risk.The research finds that: CSR fulfillment can reduce the debt risk faced by enterprises by reducing debt concentration,easing corporate financing constraints and improving product market competitive advantage.This effect is in private enterprises,enterprises in the eastern region and those with high equity checks and balances are more obvious.Thirdly,based on the perspective of peer effect,this paper studies the exogenous impact and economic consequences of peer CSR fulfillment on its own corporate social responsibility performance.The study found that corporate social responsibility performance has significant peer effect.At the same time,environmental uncertainty and industry(regional)market position are also key factors affecting the peer effect of CSR fulfillment.Moreover,the peer effect of CSR fulfillment is particularly evident in high-tech industries and eastern enterprises.Moreover,the peer effect has a significant inhibitory effect on the debt risk of enterprises,industries and regions.The further study of this paper finds that the performance of strategic social responsibility has a peer effect,and will have an inhibitory effect on the above three levels of debt risk;The improvement of information transparency will also promote the emergence of the peer effect of corporate social responsibility performance,and enhance the influence of industry leaders and regional followers on the performance level of social responsibility in the whole industry and region,as well as the negative impact on the above three levels of debt risk.The contributions and innovations of this paper may exist in the following aspects: Firstly,in view of the divergence of research conclusions on the relationship between CSR fulfillment and debt risk,this paper systematically demonstrates the relationship between CSR fulfillment and debt risk from the aspects of risk increase hypothesis and risk reduction hypothesis.It also combs the hierarchical impact mechanism of CSR fulfillment on corporate debt.Secondly,this paper systematically reveals and tests the internal mechanism of the impact of social responsibility on debt risk of Listed Companies in China through the path of debt concentration,financing constraints and product market competitive advantages.Thirdly,based on the perspective of peer effect,this paper studies the exogenous impact of the average social responsibility performance of other enterprises in the same industry(region)on the corporate social responsibility performance,and expands the cognition of the external influencing factors of social responsibility.In addition,based on the measurement method of debt risk of a single enterprise,this paper constructs the measurement indicators of debt risk at the industry and regional levels,empirically tests the impact of peer effect of CSR fulfillment on debt risk at the three levels of enterprise,industry and region,and expands the research on debt risk.