Academic Conference on Good Business

Corporate Social Responsibility Activities: Appropriability and Impact on Social Performance

To explore strategic aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR), this paper examines the impact of CSR activities on corporate social performance (CSP). Drawing from and synthezing two literatures, the well-known instrumental/strategic stakeholder theory and research on CSR strategic value criteria (Burke and Logsden, 1996), we conceptualize appropriability as a variable intermediating between a firm’s CSR activities and its CSP. We suggest that two considerations shape appropriability in the context of corporate social performance: 1) the extent to which social actions go beyond legal requirements and dominant social norms (voluntarism and proactivity) and, 2) the coherence of stakeholder groups’ interest aggregation and articulation. We hypothesize a clear positive connection between investment in corporate social activities and CSP where appropriability is high. Our second conceptual contribution is to categorize CSR activities as performance-oriented and learning/information acquisition-oriented. Where appropriability is low, we expect activities will be learning/information acquisition-oriented and the association between corporate social activity and CSP negative. In preliminary statistical tests we find empirical support for the value of developing the appropriability concept in research on corporate social activity and corporate social performance and further exploring the differences between performance-oriented and learning-oriented corporate social activities.