Do corporate customers prefer socially responsible suppliers?: an instrumental stakeholder theory perspective

This paper studies the way supplier firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects their likelihood of being selected as new suppliers. Using a large sample of US public firms with detailed supply chain and CSR data, we provide empirical evidence that corporate customers prefer socially respon...

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Auteurs: Tao, Ran (Auteur) ; Wu, Jian (Auteur) ; Zhao, Hong (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
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Publié: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2023
Dans: Journal of business ethics
Année: 2023, Volume: 185, Numéro: 3, Pages: 689-712
Sujets non-standardisés:B Instrumental stakeholder theory
B Aufsatz in Zeitschrift
B Supplier selection
B Corporate customer
B Sustainable supply chain management
B Responsabilité sociale de l'entreprise
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Résumé:This paper studies the way supplier firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects their likelihood of being selected as new suppliers. Using a large sample of US public firms with detailed supply chain and CSR data, we provide empirical evidence that corporate customers prefer socially responsible suppliers, and that the effect is more prominent when the supplier industry is more competitive, the customer’s own CSR performance is better, or the supplier and the customer have more similar CSR focuses. Our paper contributes to the literature of instrumental stakeholder theory (IST) by confirming corporate customer attraction as a desirable outcome of supplier CSR engagement. It complements the existing IST studies on customer responses by showing that CSR attracts not only final customers but also corporate customers. Moreover, by focusing on corporate customers’ revealed preferences for socially responsible suppliers, our paper also complements the stated-preference-based evidence in the literature of sustainable supply chain management. Our paper’s findings encourage supplier firm managers to invest in CSR to gain competitive advantages in the form of a higher likelihood of selection while simultaneously making positive contributions to society.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contient:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-022-05171-5