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The Importance of Corporate Social Responsibility Strategic Fit and Times of Economic Hardship
Author(s) -
Apaydin Marina,
Jiang Guoliang Frank,
Demirbag Mehmet,
Jamali Dima
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
british journal of management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.407
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1467-8551
pISSN - 1045-3172
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8551.12402
Subject(s) - corporate social responsibility , business , stakeholder , value (mathematics) , extant taxon , recession , strategic management , stakeholder theory , empirical research , salient , marketing , set (abstract data type) , industrial organization , economics , public relations , management , political science , philosophy , epistemology , machine learning , evolutionary biology , computer science , keynesian economics , law , biology , programming language
Previous research investigating the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance (CFP) reveals the importance of industry specificity. Drawing on strategic stakeholder theory, we argue that the strategic fit between CSR activities and value chain activities contributes to industry‐specific effects in the CSR–CFP relationship. Given the multidimensional nature of CSR, some CSR activities will be more impactful for certain industries than others, because industries differ in value chain activities and salient stakeholders. Specifically, we propose and test a set of hypotheses for two industries positioned on the different ends of the industry spectrum based on their ecological footprint – healthcare and resource extraction. We further examine the industry specificity of the CSR–CFP relationship by exploring external economic conditions (the 2008–2009 recession) as a boundary condition. Our study contributes to the extant literature by demonstrating the role of strategic fit between CSR and value chain activities in explaining the influence of CSR on CFP. Additional testing of this mechanism in times of economic hardship adds a unique aspect to our theoretical and empirical contributions.