Listed peers' giving and corporate philanthropy: The motivations to imitate

The impact of industrial peers' donations on firms' charitable practices has been tested and verified in existing literatures. This paper further studies the motivations and scenarios of non‐listed companies to imitate their listed counterparts in the same industry to formulate charitable policies. Deeply rooted in institutional isomorphism theory, uncertainty and professional networks are employed as philanthropic motives for unlisted companies to mimic their listed peers. Managerial decision mechanisms and network status perceptions enhance imitation by reinforcing decision uncertainty and network effect. Institutional environment heterogeneity can amplify or reduce the imitative stimulus of managers' decision mechanisms and status perceptions. Our empirical tests are based on a unique dataset of 14,873 unlisted firms and their corresponding listed counterparts in China from 2006–2016, and use Tobit regression methods. The results show a significantly positive association between listed peers' giving and non‐listed firms' donation. The peer effects are intensified when non‐listed firms' decentralized decision‐making and higher managers' status identification are present. Furthermore, when the institutional environment changes from weak to strong, the impetus of decentralized decision‐making and status identification will be weakened. These findings contribute to the corporate philanthropy literature and facilitate the development of effective corporate charity policies and government promotion of philanthropic responsibility.