关键词:

慈善捐赠, 政府补贴, 扭亏效果, 亏损企业, NCA

Abstract:

In the context of “common prosperity”, charitable donations, considered as a means of “the third distribution”, can effectively promote social equity. In China, companies are the main source of charitable donations. However, it is an abnormal behavior for companies to make a large charitable donation even when they are in a state of losing money. Therefore, it is worthy of exploring the logic behind this behavior. From the perspective of legitimacy, this paper, using a mixture of necessity condition analysis (NCA) and regression analysis, explores the mechanism by which charitable donations affect the loss reversal of money-losing companies. The analysis of money-losing companies of publicly traded firms indicates that these companies face a failing legitimacy and can improve their external legitimacy through charitable donations, particularly when they treat their employees better. The gained legitimacy can increase their chance of obtaining government subsidies and, thus, engender a better financial performance. Charitable donations, in interaction with a better social responsibility toward employees, are the boundary condition for companies to achieve loss recovery, and government subsidies play an intermediary role between charitable donations and loss recovery. This paper deepens the theoretical understanding of the relationship between charitable donations, government subsidies, and loss reversal of companies, providing practical implications and policy recommendations for money-losing companies to achieve profitability.

Key words:

charitable donations, government subsidies, loss recovery, money-losing companies, necessity condition analysis（NCA）