Digital Transformation and Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from Chinese Listed Firms

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-980-3_17How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Digital transformation; Corporate social responsibility; R&D investment; Information transparency; Governance structure; Heterogeneity analysis

Abstract

With the digital economy rapidly evolving, digital transformation now underpins corporate sustainability. With CSMAR data covering Chinese A-share firms from 2009 to 2023, this study provides empirical evidence on how digital transformation influences corporate social responsibility (CSR) and examine the underlying pathways. This study reports a statistically significant rise in CSR performance among firms undertaking digital transformation, and the finding persists under numerous alternative specifications and robustness procedures. Mechanism analyses further reveal that digital transformation operates through three primary pathways: (1) increasing R&D investment to stimulate innovation activities; (2) improving disclosure quality and external monitoring by enhancing information transparency; and (3) optimizing governance structures to mitigate risks and agency problems, thereby strengthening CSR fulfillment. Heterogeneity analyses show that the effect is stronger for firms situated in eastern China, for firms with less severe financing constraints, for firms at the growth stage, and for firms operating in technology-intensive industries. Overall, this study contributes fresh empirical evidence on the linkage between digital transformation and CSR and delineates implications for policymakers, corporations, and investors seeking to foster deeper integration between digital strategy and CSR practices.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yuanlin Wu
AU  - Yu Chen
AU  - Huajun Zheng
AU  - Linze Wu
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/26
TI  - Digital Transformation and Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from Chinese Listed Firms
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 5th International Conference on Business Administration and Data Science (BADS 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 169
EP  - 191
SN  - 2352-538X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-980-3_17
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-980-3_17
ID  - Wu2025
ER  -