Research On The Influence Of Senior Executives’ Overseas Background On Corporate Social Responsibility Information Disclosure

In recent years,with the frequent occurrence of food safety,production safety and environmental pollution,the issue of corporate social responsibility has attracted unprecedented attention from all stakeholders.The socialist core values advocated by the government,as well as the policy of “structural reform of the supply front”,“the belt and road” and “targeted measures in poverty alleviation”,all reflect our government’s higher requirements for corporate social responsibility.Publicly disclosing CSR reports can effectively reflect the performance of CSR,which is also one of the most direct and effective communication tools with stakeholders.However,the overall disclosure of CSR reports is still not optimistic,which is reflected in the overall low quality of disclosure and the large gap between individuals.Therefore,how to uplift the quality of corporate social responsibility information disclosure and to analyse the factors influencing corporate social responsibility information disclosure has become a continuing concern of the theoretical and practical circles.Our government attaches great importance to the introduction of overseas high-level talents,and has issued a series of methods and plans for the introduction of talents from the central to local governments.At the same time,with the rapid development of China’s economy and the increasing international influence,it also attracts a large number of overseas high-level talents to return to China(to work),and the phenomenon that they are appointed as senior executives of listed companies is becoming more and more common.According to the sample statistics of this paper,about 62.9% of listed companies have at least one senior executive with overseas background and senior executives with overseas background account for 7% average ratio of top management team.Compared with local grown-up senior executives,senior executives with overseas backgrounds are also influenced by the education and edification of advanced theories and practices of CSR of overseas developed countries(regions),who significantly impact on CSR performance.There is an inevitable relationship between corporate social responsibility performance and social responsibility information disclosure.It is hard to imagine that an enterprise,which has assumed social responsibility and is likely to gain a good social reputation,does not do corresponding disclosure.This fully shows that the overseas background of senior executives is an important factor infuencing corporate social responsibility information disclosure.Selecting senior executives’ overseas background as the logical starting point of corporate social responsibility information disclosure is not only very necessary but also of important theoretical and practical significance.Based on the individual characteristics of senior executives’ overseas background,this paper uses stakeholder theory,upper echelons theory and signal transmission theory to systematically analyse its impact on corporate social responsibility information disclosure,as well as the different effects of the details of senior executives’ overseas background on corporate social responsibility information disclosure.Combining with the attention-based view,this paper reveals the internal mechanism of the influence of senior executives’ overseas background on corporate social responsibility information disclosure,expounds the mediating role of the attention allocation of top management team between the two,and presents a more complete logical chain of “senior executives’ overseas background→attention allocation of top management team→corporate social responsibility information disclosure”.In addition,it considers the environment that senior executives face and their understanding of the environment,and incorporating regional culture into the above theoretical analysis framework by using the theory of cultural value to explore its mechanism of moderating the relationship between the two.Then it embeds into China’s market environment and institutional background,and sorts out the relevant research propositions.Finally,it establishes hypotheses based on research propositions,and selects A-share non-financial listed companies that issued CSR reports in China from 2010 to 2017 as research objects,empirically to analyse and concrete research conclusions.In general,the theoretical analysis and empirical research obtained in this paper mainly includes three aspects:First,the individual characteristics of senior executives’ overseas background will significantly affect the quality of corporate social responsibility information disclosure.Taking the senior executives’ overseas backgrounds as the starting point,it subdivides the type of overseas backgrounds(overseas studying,overseas working),the ways of overseas studying backgrounds(overseas education/degree,overseas training/visiting,overseas postdoctoral research),the source countries(regions)of overseas background,and empirically analyses their different effects on corporate social responsibility information disclosure.In further tests,this paper distinguishes the differences between key and non-key senior executives with overseas background,different nationalities of senior executives with overseas background on corporate social responsibility information disclosure,the impact of whether listed companies were punished in the current or previous years on the relationship between them,and the economic consequences of corporate social responsibility information disclosure affected by executives’ overseas background.The empirical research results show:(1)Compared with corporates without senior executives’ overseas backgrounds,corporate social responsibility information disclosure with senior executives’ overseas backgrounds is of high quality.If the proportion of senior executives with overseas background is fairly greater,the quality of corporate social responsibility information disclosure will become higher.Subdivide overseas background into overseas studying background and overseas working background,senior executives with overseas working background have higher influence on the quality of corporate social responsibility information disclosure than senior executives with overseas studying background.Subdivide overseas studying background into obtaining overseas education/degree,overseas training/visiting,and overseas postdoctoral research.Obtaining overseas education/degree has the most significant effect on uplifting the quality of corporate social responsibility information disclosure.When executives with overseas studying(working)background come from countries(regions)that implement compulsory corporate social responsibility information disclosure orientation,the quality of corporate social responsibility information disclosure is higher.(2)In further test,firstly,distinguish the key and non-key senior executives,and find that key senior executives with overseas background have greater influence on corporate social responsibility information disclosure than non-key senior executives with overseas background;key senior executives with overseas working background have greater influence on uplifting the quality of corporate social responsibility information disclosure than key senior executives with overseas studying background.Secondly,according to different nationalities,senior executives with overseas backgrounds are divided into two categories: foreign and Chinese,or four categories: foreign non-Chinese,foreign Chinese,Hong Kong/Macao/Taiwan and the mainland.Regardless of the classification method,the effect on corporate social responsibility information disclosure is significantly positive.Among them,senior executives with overseas backgrounds from foreign Chinese,Hong Kong,Macao and Taiwan have a higher effect on uplifting the quality of corporate social responsibility information disclosure than those with overseas backgrounds from foreign non-Chinese and mainland Chinese.Once again,whether listed companies were punished for irregularities in the current or previous years as a benchmark for grouping,found that senior executives with overseas background in the punished group has a higher impact on corporate social responsibility information disclosure.Finally,based on the perspective of corporate value enhancement,this paper examines the economic consequences of senior executives’ overseas background on corporate social responsibility information disclosure.It has proved that senior executives with overseas backgrounds can contribute to the improvement of corporate value after disclosing high-quality corporate social responsibility information.(3)In robustness test,it adopts four methods,including propensity score matching,Heckman two-stage model,instrumental variable method,and replacing the measurement of corporate social responsibility information disclosure.The research conclusions are consistent with the main test conclusions.Second,the attention allocation of top management team in corporate social responsibility plays a mediating role between the senior executives’ overseas background and corporate social responsibility information disclosure.It uses text analysis to measure the results of top management team’s attention allocation in corporate social responsibility,and empirically analyses its mediating role between the senior executives’ overseas background and corporate social responsibility information disclosure.The empirical research results show:(1)Compared with the senior executives’ without overseas background,the top management team with overseas background allocates more attention to corporate social responsibility.The more or the higher proportion of senior executives has overseas background,the more attention they pay to corporate social responsibility.The more attention the top management team allocates to corporate social responsibility,the higher the quality of corporate social responsibility information disclosure.The attention allocation of top management team in corporate social responsibility is a mediating variable between the senior executives’ overseas background and the corporate social responsibility information disclosure.(2)In robustness test,it adopts two methods,including replacing the measurement of corporate social responsibility information disclosure and replacing the measurement of attention allocation.The research conclusions are consistent with the main test conclusions.Third,the dimensions of power distance and masculinity versus femininity in regional culture play a moderating role between senior executives’ overseas background and corporate social responsibility information disclosure.Based on the questionnaire of Hofstede VSM(2013),this paper calculates the specific scores of cultural values’ four dimensions(including power distance,individuaisml versus collectivism,masculinity versus femininity,uncertainty avoidance)of provinces(municipalities,autonomous regions)in the mainland.It empirically analyses the moderating effect of the regional culture between the senior executives’ overseas background and corporate social responsibility information disclosure,and the moderating effect of social capital of employment region in further tests.The empirical research results show:(1)The lower the power distance,and the more the femininity,the stronger the positive impact of senior executives’ overseas background on corporate social responsibility information disclosure.The power distance of employment region has a negative moderating effect between senior executives’ overseas background and corporate social responsibility information disclosure.The femininity of employment region has a positive moderating effect between senior executives’ overseas background and corporate social responsibility information disclosure.(2)In further test,it investigates the moderating effect of social capital of employment region.The higher the social capital,the stronger the positive impact of the senior executives’ overseas background on corporate social responsibility information disclosure.The social capital of employment region has a positive moderating effect between senior executives’ overseas background and corporate social responsibility information disclosure.(3)In robustness test,it replaces the measurement of corporate social responsibility information disclosure.The research conclusions are consistent with the main test conclusions.Based on the above empirical research conclusions,this paper combines the current situation of corporate social responsibility information disclosure in our country and the relevant institutional background,and puts forward the following policy recommendations:(1)Pay attention to the “introduction” of overseas background talents and the “send out” of domestic outstanding talents.(2)Focus on the way of obtaining overseas background for talents and establish corresponding incentive and evaluation measures.(3)Lead top management team to increase their attention allocation on corporate social responsibility.(4)Promote legislation on corporate social responsibility information disclosure,and strengthen supervision and punishment.(5)Create a regional cultural value atmosphere of “low power distance,gender equality”.In summary,this paper incorporates the senior executives’ overseas background,attention allocation,regional culture and the corporate social responsibility information disclosure into an analytical framework,which provides a more comprehensive and complete logical thinking and empirical evidence for the research in this field.Compared with domestic and foreign similar literatures,the possible innovations of this paper lie in the following four aspects:(1)An incremental literature on the impact of overseas background types,overseas studying background ways,and the differences of overseas background source countries(regions)on corporate social responsibility information disclosure has been provided.Existing literatures have analysed the relationship between corporate social responsibility information disclosure and senior executives’ age,gender,education,tenure,professional experience,social reputation,political connection,neglecting the key feature of senior executives’ overseas background.Dig into the specific content of the senior executives’ overseas background,further subdividing the types of senior executives’ overseas background,the ways of overseas studying background and the differences of overseas background source countries(regions),systematically analyzing their different influences on corporate social responsibility information disclosure,which deepens the literature on the influential factors of corporate social responsibility information disclosure from the perspective of senior executives’ overseas background.(2)It reveals the channels through which senior executives’ overseas background affects corporate social responsibility information disclosure.Previous literature only stay in the simple causal relationship of “senior executives’ overseas background→CSR”,has not thoroughly excavated the channels through which senior executives’ overseas background affects corporate social responsibility information disclosure.This paper combines the upper echelons theory with the attention-based view,introduces the mediating variable of the attention allocation of the top management team,empirically confirms the feasibility of the logical chain of “senior executives’ overseas background→top management teams’ attention allocation→corporate social responsibility information disclosure”,and tries to open up the “black box” of the influence of the senior executives’ overseas background on corporate social responsibility information disclosure.(3)It applies cultural value theory and explores the moderating effect of regional culture between the senior executives’ overseas background and corporate social responsibility information disclosure.Previous studies focused on the regional culture,mainly as an independent variable to examine the possible impact on corporate social responsibility disclosure.By issuing the Hofstede VSM(2013 edition)questionnaire,this paper calculates the four-dimensional scores of provinces(municipalities and autonomous regions)in our country,from the perspective of moderating role,and examines the influence path of regional culture between the senior executives’ overseas background and corporate social responsibility information disclosure.(4)The conclusion of this paper not only proves the importance of overseas background talents in enhancing corporate social responsibility information disclosure,but also examines the economic consequences of the influence of overseas background on corporate social responsibility information disclosure from the perspective of corporate value enhancement.These conclusions provide important empirical evidence for relevant departments and enterprises to further enrich the human resources with various characteristics,especially for listed companies to enrich overseas background executives,and play a better role on corporate governance.It also provides data support for the implementation effect of the national high-level overseas talent introduction policy.