Corporate social responsibility and green supply chain efficiency: conditioning effects based on CEO narcissism

The paper addresses how corporate social responsibility (CSR) influences firms’ green supply chain efficiency (GSCE) and whether CEO narcissism conditions this relationship. Motivated by China’s strategic emphasis on high-quality development and the need to build efficient green supply chains, the study situates its research question within stakeholder theory (CSR as fulfillment of obligations to stakeholders), higher-order/upper echelons theory (firm outcomes reflect executive traits), and expectancy theory (stakeholder responses depend on perceptions of goals and cues). The authors argue that satisfying stakeholder needs is central to improving GSCE and posit that CSR should therefore matter for GSCE. They further propose that internal CSR (toward shareholders, employees, suppliers, customers/consumers) and external CSR (toward government, community, environment) may have heterogeneous effects on GSCE. Given CEOs’ pivotal role, their narcissistic traits could amplify or dampen CSR’s effects on GSCE by shaping attention and signaling to stakeholders. Hypotheses: H1, CSR positively affects GSCE; H2a, internal CSR positively affects GSCE; H2b, external CSR negatively affects GSCE; H3a, CEO narcissism strengthens the positive impact of internal CSR on GSCE; H3b, CEO narcissism strengthens the negative impact of external CSR on GSCE.

Theoretical framing contrasts shareholder primacy (CSR as potentially value-destroying due to agency and information asymmetry) with stakeholder theory (CSR enhances reputation, access to resources, and sustainable performance). Existing GSCE antecedent research emphasizes government subsidies, internal environmental management, eco-design, and consumer collaboration, with limited attention to CSR’s role. CSR literature largely examines outcomes such as firm value, transparency, financing constraints, green innovation, and risk, typically treating CSR as a composite construct rather than distinguishing internal vs external dimensions. Upper echelons research has mostly used CEO demographics (age, gender, race, education); psychological traits like narcissism are increasingly studied, with evidence that narcissistic CEOs may pursue visible CSR for attention. The paper fills gaps by: linking CSR to GSCE; disaggregating CSR into internal and external components; and examining CEO narcissism as a moderator aligning with expectancy and upper echelons theories.

Data and sample: Chinese A-share non-financial listed companies, 2014–2021. Data sources include CSMAR, stock exchange websites, company websites, and hand-collected items. Exclusions: ST firms, financially abnormal firms, and observations with extreme/missing data; variables winsorized at 1%. Final panel comprises 6105 firm-year observations (752 firms). Analyses conducted using DEAP 2.1 and Stata 16.0. Dependent variable (GSCE): Measured via a three-stage DEA approach. Inputs: net fixed assets; green supply chain personnel costs. Outputs: reuse rate of raw materials and energy; inventory turnover rate. Environmental variables: firm age (years since establishment) and asset size (total assets). Procedure: Stage 1 uses a BC2 DEA model to obtain initial efficiency and input slacks. Stage 2 applies SFA to regress input slacks on environmental variables, decomposing deviations into random noise (v) and management inefficiency (u), then adjusts inputs using X_Ani = X_i + [max(Zβ) − Z_iβ] + [max(v_ik) − v_ik]. Stage 3 re-runs DEA with adjusted inputs to obtain efficiency net of environmental and random disturbance effects (interpreted as pure management efficiency of GSCE). Independent variables: CSR disclosure index constructed from firms’ social responsibility and financial reports, guided by Hexun’s CSR framework (5 primary domains, 13 secondary, 38 tertiary indicators). The study codes disclosure presence across an expanded set of 56 items as 1/0, aggregates and normalizes to form CSR. CSR is decomposed into internal CSR (shareholder, employee, supplier/customer/consumer rights) and external CSR (environmental and social responsibility); corresponding scores Incsr and Excsr are computed as the mean across relevant tertiary items. Moderator: CEO narcissism (Ceonar) proxied by two adapted measures due to data limitations: (1) CEO prominence in corporate publications, operationalized as the ratio of CEO-related news to total news on the corporate website; (2) frequency proportion of first-person pronouns (I, we) in CEO speeches/interviews from financial portals and company sites. Values are averaged over the 2nd and 3rd years of CEO tenure and log-transformed to reduce skewness. Controls: Regional economic development (Area: real GDP per capita proxy), firm size (Size: log total assets), profitability (ROA), state ownership (SOE indicator), firm age (Age: log years since listing), as well as industry and year fixed effects; some models include firm fixed effects. Models: (1) GSCE = α + β1 CSR + controls + ε; (2) GSCE = α + β7 Incsr + β8 Excsr + controls + ε; (3) GSCE = α + β14 (Incsr×Ceonar) + β15 (Excsr×Ceonar) + controls + ε to test moderation. Robustness: propensity score matching (nearest neighbor, radius, kernel) to mitigate self-selection; alternative CSR measure using Runlin Global (RKS) CSR score; lagging core explanatory variables by one year to address timing between CSR and GSCE.

- Descriptive statistics (N=6105): mean GSCE=0.419 (SD=0.202; min=0.184; max=0.898). Mean CSR=0.218 (SD=0.275). Mean Incsr=0.213; mean Excsr=0.236. Mean Ceonar=0.156 (max=5.069), indicating wide dispersion. - Correlations show no multicollinearity concerns (absolute values <0.5). - Baseline regression (Table 6): CSR positively affects GSCE. Without controls: β=0.091, p<0.05. With controls: β=0.063, p<0.01, supporting H1. - Heterogeneous CSR effects (Table 7): Internal CSR raises GSCE (with controls: Incsr β=0.196, p<0.01), while external CSR reduces GSCE (with controls: Excsr β=−0.237, p<0.01), supporting H2a and H2b. - Moderation by CEO narcissism (Table 8): Ceonar positively associated with GSCE (β≈0.613, p<0.01). Interaction terms significant: Incsr×Ceonar positive (β≈1.378, p<0.01), Excsr×Ceonar negative (β≈−1.432, p<0.01). Thus, CEO narcissism strengthens the positive effect of internal CSR (H3a) and strengthens the negative effect of external CSR on GSCE (H3b). - Robustness: - PSM (Table 9): Across nearest neighbor, radius, and kernel matching, average treatment effects of CSR on GSCE remain positive and significant at 1% (ATT differences ≈0.063–0.073), and moderation patterns persist. - Alternative CSR measure (RKS) (Table 10): CSR1 positively associated with GSCE (β=0.0793, p<0.05 without controls; β=0.0853, p<0.01 with controls), reaffirming H1. - Lagged variables (Table 11): L.CSR positively predicts GSCE (β=0.168–0.192, p<0.01). Lagged Incsr positive and significant; lagged Excsr negative and significant, consistent with main results.

Findings confirm that CSR enhances green supply chain efficiency, consistent with stakeholder theory: CSR can improve reputation, attract resources (talent, investment, policy support), reduce frictions with stakeholders, and translate into operational efficiencies along the supply chain. Disaggregating CSR reveals that internal CSR directly improves processes central to GSCE—e.g., motivating employees, strengthening supplier relationships, enhancing customer satisfaction—yielding near-term efficiency gains. Conversely, external CSR may divert resources toward reputation-driven activities with shorter-term visibility but fewer immediate operational returns, and given GSCE’s long-term, resource-intensive nature, this can reduce GSCE in the short run. CEO narcissism intensifies these dynamics: narcissistic CEOs, seeking admiration and visibility, amplify internally visible, performance-enhancing initiatives when engaging in internal CSR, but may overemphasize externally visible CSR activities at the expense of sustained investment in long-term green supply chain improvements, worsening the negative external CSR–GSCE link. Overall, the results elucidate an intrinsic mechanism of CSR value creation for supply chain performance and highlight the role of executive traits in shaping CSR’s operational consequences.

The study demonstrates that CSR contributes to higher green supply chain efficiency among Chinese listed companies. Importantly, CSR’s impact is heterogeneous: internal CSR significantly improves GSCE, while external CSR is associated with lower GSCE, likely reflecting resource allocation and timing considerations. CEO narcissism conditions these effects, strengthening the positive internal CSR–GSCE link and exacerbating the negative external CSR–GSCE link. Contributions include: integrating CSR into the GSCE antecedents literature; decomposing CSR to reveal divergent mechanisms; and incorporating CEO psychological traits into CSR–operations research. Practical implications: firms should emphasize internal CSR to build stakeholder relationships that enhance GSCE; manage external CSR to avoid short-termism; and consider CEO traits in governance and incentive design to channel narcissistic tendencies toward long-term, internal efficiency gains. Future research could further unpack mechanisms and boundary conditions, explore industry heterogeneity, and examine dynamic effects over longer horizons.

CEO narcissism was measured with two proxies (CEO prominence in corporate communications and first-person pronoun usage) due to limited availability of photos and detailed compensation data in China. While these capture facets of narcissism (leadership/authority, superiority/arrogance, self-absorption/self-admiration, utility/power), the reduced indicator set may introduce measurement bias. Additionally, reliance on disclosure-based CSR measures may be affected by reporting quality. The study’s empirical design, while robust (PSM, alternative measures, lags), remains observational; causal inference may be limited. Future work could employ case studies, longitudinal designs, or natural experiments to validate mechanisms, and develop richer narcissism and CSR measures as data availability improves.