Does CSR Reduce Idiosyncratic Risk? Roles of operational efficiency and AI innovation

Seminar abstract

In the context of Industry 4.0, corporate social responsibility (CSR) plays an increasingly important role in firm risk management.

To mitigate risk and improve operational productivity, artificial intelligence (AI), a key disruptive technology, has been increasingly employed in many industries.

In this study, we examine the relationship between CSR and idiosyncratic risk (IR) as moderated by AI innovation and operational efficiency based on data from 1,614 firms in China during the period from 2010 to 2017.

The empirical results show that CSR can negatively affect IR, while beyond a certain level, it acts in the opposite direction, exhibiting a U-shaped relationship. In particular, operational efficiency shifts the turning point of the U-shaped curve to the right, implying that firms with high operational efficiency can obtain a higher optimal benefit by improving their CSR.

Furthermore, AI innovation flattens the U-shaped curve, thereby weakening CSR’s positive impact on IR.

This result indicates that AI innovation is not always beneficial. As AI innovation can have some substitution effect on CSR, enterprises should focus on either CSR or AI innovation as their main differentiation strategy to maximize the utilization of resources.

We further instrument CSR using the social expenditure ratio of the province where the firm is headquartered to address a potential endogeneity concern. Finally, we provide several prominent managerial implications for enterprises, governments, and investors.

How to join this seminar

This seminar is free to attend with no need to register in advance.

We welcome you to join this seminar online on Wednesday 8 December 2021 at 1pm

Enjoy this seminar with your friends, colleagues and classmates.

Speaker bio

Guo Li is a Professor of Operations Management at School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China.

He has obtained his Ph.D. from Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

His research interests include supply chain management, data driven decision analytics, and operation management and marketing interface.

He has authored/edited several research handbooks and published over 60 papers in peer-refereed academic journals such as;

• Journal of Operations Management,
• Production and Operations Management,
• Decision Sciences,
• Naval Research Logistics,
• Annals of Operations Research,
• European Journal of Operational Research,
• International Journal of Production Economics,
• Transportation Research Part E,
• International Transactions in Operational Research,
• International Journal of Production Research,
• Journal of the Operational Research Society,
• IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics,
• IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.

He is currently serving as Senior Editor for Information Technology & People, Associate Editor for International Journal of Advanced Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing, managing guest editor for Annals of Operations Research, Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, and International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications, International Journal of Production Research, and an editorial review board member for Production and Operations Management and Decision Sciences.