Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is widely recognized as a vital tool for reputational repair, yet its efficacy in addressing ethical challenges arising from social networks is unclear. Specifically, while firms leverage structural holes for their informational benefits, these network positions also create reputational risks that likely require tailored CSR strategies. This study addresses this gap by examining how firms’ structural holes—and the moderating role of industrial clusters—influence their engagement in different forms of corporate philanthropy. Based on a multi-industry sample of 667 Chinese firms and a supplementary sample of 212 distributors from Chinese paper-making industry, our findings indicate that structural holes promote financial corporate philanthropy but discourage non-financial corporate philanthropy. Industrial clusters positively moderate both relationships. By shifting the scholarly focus from the informational benefits to the reputational implications of structural holes, this study contributes to disentangling financial and non-financial philanthropy as distinct strategic responses to structural holes.
Wang et al. (Fri,) studied this question.