Does empathy matter in corporate social responsibility? Evidence from emerging markets

Lamia Chourou, Jocelyn Grira, Samir Saadi

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Articlepeer-review

    6 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    This paper explores how cross-country differences in empathy can explain variations in corporate social responsibility (CSR). We show that empathy is positively associated with overall CSR, as well as with its social and environmental components. Our results are robust to using the two components of empathy, empathic concern and perspective taking. Our findings are further corroborated by evidence from a quasi-natural experiment based on the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. We find that during the year of the disaster and the following year, firms located in countries with high levels of empathy donated more money than firms located in countries with less empathy.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number100776
    JournalEmerging Markets Review
    Volume46
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Mar. 2021

    Keywords

    • Corporate social responsibility
    • Emerging markets
    • Empathic concern
    • Empathy
    • Perspective taking

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