Title: The effects of competition intensity on corporate social responsibility of chaebols

Authors: Soonwook Hong

Addresses: Division of Maritime Management and Economics, Korea Maritime and Ocean University, Busan, 49112, South Korea

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of competition intensity on corporate social responsibility of chaebols. Companies will choose different management strategies depending on the environments in which they are placed for their sustainable growth. There may be diverse management strategies depending on the concentration of the industries to which the companies belong, that is, the intensity of competition. Empirical analysis shows that chaebol companies belonging to industries with high competition intensity are more actively engaged in CSR. These results indicate that the CSR activities of chaebol companies are far from pure purposes or philanthropic motivations. It can be inferred that the CSR activities of chaebol companies are due to strategic or economic purposes. This study's contribution includes the fact that it evaluated the quality of internal CSR activities rather than the quantity of superficial CSR activities of chaebol companies.

Keywords: chaebol; corporate social responsibility; CSR; competition intensity; donation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEBR.2022.122055

International Journal of Economics and Business Research, 2022 Vol.23 No.3, pp.337 - 352

Received: 18 Sep 2020
Accepted: 11 Nov 2020
Published online: 08 Apr 2022 *

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