Research On The Influence Of Political Connections On Corporate Social Responsibility

Since the concept of corporate social responsibility was put forward,the influencing factors of corporate social responsibility have always been a topic of high concern in the academic circles.This thesis focuses on the analysis of the impact of political connections on Chinese listed companies’ corporate social responsibility and the mechanism of the impact.Based on the corporate social responsibility performance data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2017,this thesis studies the impact of political connections on corporate social responsibility performance from two perspectives:Corporate political connections and Executive political connections.And financial constraints and government subsidies play mediating roles in this impact.This thesis uses the variable of the ownership nature of the company to measure the political connections of the company,and uses the political background of the executives to measure the political connections of the executives.Further,a robustness test,a two stage least squares approach to endogenous problems,and additional analysis were performed.Through the empirical research,this thesis draws the following conclusions:(1)Corporate political connections and executive political connections can improve corporate social responsibility performance.(2)Both corporate political connections and executive political connection can improve corporate social responsibility performance by easing corporate financial constraints.(3)Both corporate political connections and executive political connections can bring more government subsidies and improve corporate social responsibility performance.(4)This thesis examines the mediating role of financial constraints and government subsidies from three perspectives: corporate internal control,corporate systemic risk,and whether or not it is a family business,and the results are robust.The conclusions drawn in this thesis provide reasonable suggestions for the government to urge enterprises to implement social responsibilities,and provide a new perspective for corporate managers to construct political connections to alleviate corporate financial problems.