Title: Charity or a diversion tactic in disguise of charity? Exploring Chinese enterprises' motivation for giving in the wake of COVID-19

Authors: Yunshu Tang; Mengli Zhang; Dong Andrew Li; Yajie Wang

Addresses: School of Management, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, Anhui 230009, China ' School of Management, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, Anhui 230009, China ' Johnson School of Business, McMurry University, Abilene, Texas, USA ' School of Management, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, Anhui 230009, China

Abstract: This research attempts to infer a Chinese publicly listed enterprise's motivation for giving in the wake of COVID-19. We first create an enterprise's 'abnormal ranking' by subtracting its corporate social responsibility (CSR) composite score ranking in 2019 from its COVID-19-related donation ranking in 2020. We then examine the association between the enterprise's abnormal ranking and historical CSR fulfilment in three dimensions, (i.e., responsibility-to-customers, responsibility-to-employees, responsibility-to-environment), considering enterprise ownership and executive characteristics. We find that the enterprises of historically higher responsibility-to-customers (lower responsibility-to-employees) fulfilment tend to make incremental donations in 2020, suggesting genuine, consistent charity (a diversion tactic in disguise of charity). Nevertheless, the enterprises of historically higher responsibility-to-environment fulfilment tend not to make incremental donations in 2020. Further, we note that the altruistic motivation is more pronounced in the enterprises of non-state ownership or younger-age, higher-education-level executives. Together, this study extends the corporate giving literature to a deeper, more dynamic context.

Keywords: charity; diversion tactic; COVID-19-related donations; corporate social responsibility; CSR; responsibility to customers; responsibility to employees; China.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBGE.2026.150421

International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, 2026 Vol.20 No.1, pp.1 - 27

Received: 01 Dec 2022
Accepted: 05 Sep 2023
Published online: 13 Dec 2025 *

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