Corporate social responsibility and firm performance

Building on the stakeholder-management and legitimacy literature, we argue that concern about stakeholders’ reactions may cause firms to keep silent about their charitable donations. This study attempted to determine the influence of silent charitable donations on firm performance and its size and CEO salary. The sample of this study was listed non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOE) in China from 2009 to 2015 that make donations and do not include these philanthropic donations information in CSR reports. Data were collected from multiple sources, including the CSMAR database and the annual and CSR reports of the selected firms. The regression model was used to test the main effect. Results show that the silent donations of firms positively influence their performance. Moreover, firm size and CEO salary oppositely moderate the relationship between silent donations and firm performance. This study advances our understanding of how and under what conditions non-SOEs make silent charitable donations and enhance their performance by highlighting the important role of these donations, thereby contributing to the literature on corporate social responsibility and silent charitable donations.