传统善会善堂的历史遗产——基于企业社会责任的研究

Historical Heritage of Traditional Charity Associations and Charity Halls: Based on the Study of CSR

《财经研究》2023年49卷第4期 页码：109 - 123 online：2023年4月3日

作者

中：谢佳松 , 林建浩 , 罗挺威

英：Xie Jiasong, Lin Jianhao, Luo Tingwei

作者单位：中山大学 岭南学院，广东 广州 510275

摘要及关键词

摘要：中国传统社会中的善会善堂作为民间慈善组织，兼具施善与教化功能，这种历史上的非正式制度是否会持续影响当代企业行为？文章将上市企业精确坐标匹配到古代府级层面，并结合史料中的善会善堂数据进行实证研究。结果表明：（1）善会善堂密度越高的地区，企业社会责任表现越好。（2）进一步基于企业是否需要强制披露社会责任以及自主第三方鉴证等视角剥离机会主义动机，发现地区善会善堂密度对企业社会责任表现的推动作用依然存在。（3）从作用机制来看，历史上长期存在的善会善堂形成了个体利他的文化观念，并通过塑造企业管理者的利他价值观进而影响企业社会责任表现。文章的研究结果表明，历史上长期存在的善会善堂依然会对当今经济活动产生深远影响，这有助于我们理解中华优秀传统文化的现代意义。

关键词：历史遗产；善会善堂；企业社会责任

Summary: To explore the internal driving force of corporate social responsibility（CSR）in the Chinese context, we need to explore historical rationality from the traditional Chinese society. Much research has shown that historical institutions can have a long-term impact on modern economic development. In the traditional Chinese society, there has been a particular kind of charitable organization — Charity Associations and Charity Halls, which has both the functions of charity and education. Does this historical informal institution continue to affect the behavior of contemporary firms? In order to answer this important question, this paper matches the precise coordinates of listed companies to the ancient prefecture level, and makes an empirical study combined with the data of Charity Associations and Charity Halls in historical materials. The results demonstrate that the higher the density of Charity Associations and Charity Halls, the better the performance of CSR. After considering various cultural factors, the characteristics of CEOs and the impact of major events, the main conclusion is still robust. Further, from the perspectives of whether firms are required to disclose social responsibility forcibly and independent third-party authentication to peel off the opportunistic motivation, this paper finds that the promotion effect of the density of Charity Associations and Charity Halls on the performance of CSR still exists. From the perspective of mechanism, the long-standing Charity Associations and Charity Halls have formed the cultural concept of individual altruism, which affects the performance of CSR by shaping the altruistic values of firm executives, and there is no risk aversion mechanism. The results show that Charity Associations and Charity Halls can still have a far-reaching impact on today’s economic activities, which is helpful to understand the modern significance of Chinese excellent traditional culture as a historical heritage. The main contributions are that: First, this paper discusses the long-term impact of historical heritage on CSR based on Charity Associations and Charity Halls in the Chinese traditional society for the first time, which deepens the understanding of existing literature on corporate altruistic behavior. Second, this paper focuses on such charitable organization in the traditional society, and finds that it continues to affect today’s corporate behavior. Therefore, this paper has an expansion on the literature of institutional economics and economic history. Third, based on the analysis framework of epidemiological approach, after excluding the impact of the formal institution of firm location, this paper uses the manually collected birthplace information of firm executives and verifies that behind the long-term impact of Charity Associations and Charity Halls is the mechanism path to promote CSR by shaping the individual cultural concept of entrepreneurs, which provides sufficient evidence support for the conclusion that the historical heritage can play a role in the long term.

Key words:historical heritage; charity associations and charity halls; CSR

其他信息

DOI：10.16538/j.cnki.jfe.20220714.201

收稿日期：2022-05-11

基金项目：国家自然科学基金项目（72073148，72273156）；国家社会科学基金重大项目（21ZDA036）

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