IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/buseth/v34y2025i2p309-327.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Corporate social responsibility in times of social distancing: Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Md Jahidur Rahman
  • Qi Wu
  • Hongtao Zhu

Abstract

This study investigates whether and how the intensity of social distancing from the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic influences the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure index. An empirical examination is carried out based on data from the Shanghai Stock Exchange from 2020 to 2022. CSR disclosure index is measured by the percentage of CSR‐related press releases from the total press releases published on a certain day. The intensity of the COVID‐19 pandemic is measured by the daily confirmed cases among the population in China. This research uses the two‐stage least squares regression model to alleviate the endogeneity issues. Findings reveal a reverse correlation between the intensity of the COVID‐19 pandemic and the CSR disclosure. The results are consistent and robust to endogeneity tests and sensitivity analyses. Findings support the stakeholder–agency theory and indicate that Chinese managers tend to satisfy the shareholders' interests rather than those of other broad stakeholders. Moreover, Chinese managers tend to choose short‐term survival rather than long‐term development in times of social distancing.

Suggested Citation

  • Md Jahidur Rahman & Qi Wu & Hongtao Zhu, 2025. "Corporate social responsibility in times of social distancing: Evidence from China," Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(2), pages 309-327, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:buseth:v:34:y:2025:i:2:p:309-327
    DOI: 10.1111/beer.12651
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12651
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/beer.12651?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:buseth:v:34:y:2025:i:2:p:309-327. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/26946424 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.