Employee political affiliation as a driver of corporate social responsibility intensity

This article explores the connection between corporate social responsibility (CSR) intensity and the political affiliation of elite management and lower-level personnel and offers evidence that CSR initiatives are frequently driven from the bottom-up by employees actively expressing their sociopolitical views. While directors and CEOs play an important role within certain CSR dimensions, results suggest that employees are significantly more influential overall. A one-standard-deviation shift to the political left for directors, CEOs and elite executives yields gains in CSR of 5%, 9% and 3%, respectively, while a one-standard-deviation left-shift for employees produces a 33% increase. Findings may help to explain why similar firms engaging in comparable social initiatives can experience heterogeneous returns to CSR outlays and suggest that a corporate culture approach may be warranted in future studies.