Are R&D-Intensive firms also corporate social responsibility specialists? A multicountry study.

ABSTRACT: Seeking to obtain efficiency in the development and integration of knowledge about R&D and corporate social responsibility (CSR), firms face hard choices about their resource allocation to these two areas because of the specialized nature of knowledge and related barriers to integration. We address this organizational resource allocation dilemma by relaxing the common assumption that firms are either responsible or irresponsible and examining financial slack as a possible moderator. Using a multicountry sample of 1,957 firms over a 16-year timespan, we find strong empirical support for the positive association between firms' R&D intensity and CSR specialization, a novel concept that-distinct from CSR as such-gauges the extent to which firms specialize in specific environmental, social, or

SUBMITTER: Fu L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7406420 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature