Communist Party Member Status Of Senior Managers In Private Enterprises And Corporate Philanthropy

Corporate philanthropy is the most important and direct way for enterprises to fulfill social responsibility.In recent years,it has attracted more social attention and become a hot topic in the field of social responsibility research.Based on Upper Echelons Theory,the decision of corporate program are closely related to the values and cognitive structure of enterprise executives,and culture plays an important role behind different values and cognitive structures.By influencing executives' cognition,interaction and strategic choice,culture shapes their specific thinking and decision-making patterns and influences their financial decision-making behaviors.As a socialist state,Communist Culture has a profound impact on China's economic development.As an important carrier of Communist Culture,communists make it feasible to study the influence of Chinese political culture on corporate financial behavior from the micro level.Consequently,this paper empirically tested the relationship between the communist senior executives of private enterprises and corporate philanthropy,using the data from 2009-2016 of A-share private listed companies as samples.The research found that(1)The Communist Party member status of senior executives was positively correlated with corporate philanthropy.(2)Based on further research on the status of communist,the birthplace,political connections,academic backgrounds and salary of the communist senior executives is positively correlated with corporate philanthropy.(3)Based on the discussion of the institutional environment,the institutional environment strengthens the relationship between the Communist Party member status of senior executives and corporate philanthropy.Further study find that senior executives who have Communist Party member status through philanthropic donations results in the decrease of enterprise value,confirmed the party executives altruistic motives for corporate philanthropy.The contributions of this paper are as follows :(1)From a new perspective of Chinese political culture,the " Communist Party member status " was included in the index system of background characteristics of senior executives,which expanded the application scope of Upper Echelons Theory;(2)It enriches the research on the background characteristics of senior executives and corporate philanthropy,broadens the research horizon of corporate philanthropy behavior.It is helpful for stakeholders such as enterprises,society and government to understand the relationship between background characteristics of senior executives and corporate philanthropy,and has important guidance suggestion for the establishment of sustained and responsible executive team,the improvement of management level and competitive environment.