Corporate social responsibility and export performance under stakeholder view: The mediation of innovation and the moderation of the legal form

Prior confronting findings on the association between corporate social responsibility and profitability show that some aspects remain to be clarified about this binomial. Contributing to this body of research is particularly interesting in the case of the exporters to understand the role that corporate social responsibility may play in improving export performance. This study aims to determine the impact of firms' corporate social responsibility efforts on their export performance by examining innovation and the legal form of the organization as factors that could affect this relationship. Using data from 107 agri-food companies, we found that corporate social responsibility has no direct effect on export performance. However, our results show that innovation serves as a mediator in this relationship. It was also found that companies that adopt associative legal forms (i.e., cooperatives) benefit more from their social responsibility practices than companies that adopt non-associative legal forms.

Automated summary

This study examines the impact of corporate social responsibility on export performance, and finds that there is no direct effect. However, innovation serves as a mediator in this relationship, and companies that adopt associative legal forms benefit more from their social responsibility practices.