CEOs’ early famine experience, managerial discretion and corporate social responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reflects entrepreneurs’ early life experiences in reality. Based on imprinting theory and upper echelons theory, this paper examines the impact of a CEO’s early famine experience on CSR, analyzes the moderating effects of environmental discretion (market abundance), organizational discretion (slack resources), and CEO discretion (CEO concurrently) on the above relationship, using Chinese manufacturing listed companies from 2010 to 2019 as research samples. Research shows that when CEOs have early famine experiences, their companies have better social responsibility performance. This effect is positively moderated by the environment and organizational discretion and negatively moderated by CEO discretion. Further research finds that when CEOs are in state-owned firms, the positive effect of their early famine experience on CSR will be reinforced. The early famine experience of a turnover CEO has a weakening effect on CSR. The positive performance of CSR is more pronounced for male CEOs’ early famine experience. The early famine experience of CEOs with lower education has a more significant effect on CSR. This study reveals a practical path to improve CSR motivation from CEOs’ early famine experience and provides new evidence for the research about the CEOs’ personal experience and corporate strategic decision-making.