Keep Up With the Joneses: Founders and Family Business Philanthropy
ABSTRACT This study examines how the social climate of comparison in which a founder grew up impacts family business (FB) philanthropy, emphasizing the founder's role in FB decisions. With a dataset of 758 Chinese FBs, we find that the stronger the social climate of comparison in the founder's region of upbringing, the more charitable donations the FB tends to make. This effect is more pronounced in areas with a high concentration of FBs. The unspoken rules of Chinese society, related to ‘face (Mianzi)’ and ‘favours’ significantly influence business decisions.
Authors
- Kun Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1239-5383)
- Xiaohong Huang
- Yingkai Tang
Institutions
- Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (CN)
- Sichuan University (CN)
- Chengdu University of Information Technology (CN)
- Chengdu University (CN)
- University of Twente (NL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Business Ethics the Environment & Responsibility
- Published
- 2025-02-18
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12794
- Primary Topic
- Family Business Performance and Succession
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Chengdu University of Information Technology
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- China Scholarship Council
- Sichuan University
- National Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences
- Chengdu University
- National Social Science Fund of China