Applied systems theory and financial systems. An empirical research of a model with moderate variable added on the "CSR—CFP" linear relationship

Abstract

In Systems Theory the financial Systems Engineering plays an important role. Whether the social responsibility of state-owned enterprises can also have a significant impact on economic performance is an important problem worthy of further exploration. Based on the stakeholder theory, this study using high-quality management theory and upper echelons theory along with the second-hand data from different sources, empirically analyzes the relationship between “corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance (CFP)” of 285 Chinese state-owned listed companies. This study simultaneously introduces the level of executives' shareholding ratio (ESR) to explore the contingent effect of this relationship. This research finds that, unlike some previous results, the CSR of state-owned listed companies significantly positively affects the CFP of the subsequent years'; More importantly, the level of executives' shareholding ratio will amplify the above relationship and play the role as the positive moderate effect. From the perspective of corporate governance, this study promotes the research on the influence mechanism of Chinese state-owned enterprises' social responsibility performance, reveals the important contextual factors which positively stimulate the relationship between “CSR—CFP”, and has important enlightenment and practical significance for the development of strategic social responsibility theory and the optimization of the corporate governance of the state-owned listed companies.