The cognitive drivers of corporate charitable donations: A policy-capturing study

Using the technique of policy capturing, we investigated the cognitive bases underpinning Chinese managers’ decisions pertaining to corporate charitable donation, an issue of growing importance in the global context of CSR theory, research, and practice. The participants were confronted with a series of scenarios, in which the influence of five potentially salient stakeholders was manipulated as a within-participants’ factor, in order to examine under experimental control the effects of stakeholder pressure on individuals’ decisions regarding whether or not to commit their organizations to making a corporate charitable contribution. Industry, ownership, previous company donation, firm size, firm age, the participants’ personal values and their perceptions of their CEOs’ attitudes toward charity, were each incorporated into the research design as between-participants independent variables. In line with our theorizing, the findings indicate that a complex interplay of personal, organizational, and institutional factors are salient in the minds of decision makers tasked with the responsibility of making charitable decisions on behalf of their organizations and that these factors have a major bearing on their actions, thereby enriching understanding of how individual beliefs and motives impact upon CSR engagement. Key Words: corporate social responsibility, strategic decision making, stakeholder salience theory, policy capturing.