Moderating Effects of Corporate Social Responsibility in the Innovation Process

Despite innovation and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are becoming two major interrelated research topics,the interplay between them remains poorly understood. Thus, we examine the role of CSR on the different processes of innovation,which are divided into R&D process and commercialization process. Using a sample of 179 Chinese listed firms,this study shows that CSR can strengthen the positive linkage between R&D investment and innovation output in R&D process. In the commercialization process,the moderating effects are mixed. If the degree of firms'CSR enforcement is lower than the industry average,the effort of CSR building will negatively moderate the relationship between innovation output and firm performance. On the contrary,when degree of CSR execution is higher than the industry average,the efforts of CSR building will positively moderate the relationship between innovation output and firm performance.