Promoting and inhibiting: Corporate charitable donations and innovation investment under different motivation orientations——Evidence from Chinese listed companies

Corporate charitable donations under different motivations will have different effects on innovation investment through different action paths, which provides a new perspective to solve the inconsistency of existing research results. Based on the resource-dependent and principal-agent theories, this paper compares and discusses the relationship between charitable donations and innovation investment under different motivations. Using 2008 ~2019 relevant data of listed companies as research samples, a mixed regression model is established for the hypothesis test, and further examines the state-ownership of its moderating role. The results show that the altruistic motivation-oriented corporate donations have a significant inverted u-shaped effect on innovation investment. The tool motivation-oriented corporate donations have a significant U-shaped effect on innovation investment. Moreover, it is further found that for ST (Special Treatment) corporates with the risk of delisting in the tool motivation-oriented charitable donations type, the corporate charitable donations have a significant negative effect on innovation investment. State-ownership can enhance the inverted U-shaped relationship between altruistic motivation-oriented corporate donations and innovation investment but weaken the U-shaped relationship between tool motivation-oriented corporate donations and innovation investment.