Does Corporate Social Performance Drive Competitive Advantage? A Study of Chinese Listed Construction Companies

The term corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been intensely discussed across the world for over decades. Construction industry, however, is usually labeled as being relatively irresponsible for its adverse impacts on environment and relatively dangerous working condition on construction sites. The in-depth exploration of CSR issues has rarely been targeted. This empirical study investigates the impact of corporate social performance (CSP) on competitive advantage of Chinese listed construction companies. The hypothesis of this study is that corporate social performance is positively related to competitive advantage. Drawing on a dataset of 85 Chinese listed construction companies obtained from Hexun and Capital IQ database, the finding from structural equation model (SEM) provides strong evidence that CSP has a positive impact on competitive advantage. This result suggests that Chinese construction companies should promote their engagement in CSR activities and improve their CSR performance, thus gain a competitive advantage over their competitors.