The effect of corporate social responsibility on open innovation: the moderating role of firm proactiveness

Purpose Open innovation (OI) is an effective way to achieve firms' sustainable development in emerging markets. This study aims to investigate the effects of business and philanthropic corporate social responsibility (CSR) on OI and the moderating role of firm proactiveness in such relationships. This study also examines the effects of OI on firms' financial and innovation performance. Design/methodology/approach This study uses multisource data from 688 firms in China, including data from surveys of top managers and objective data. The Tobit model, Poisson model, and ordinary least squares regression are adopted to test the hypotheses. Findings The results suggest that business CSR and philanthropic CSR both have positive effects on OI. Proactiveness weakens the positive effect of business CSR on OI, while strengthening the effect of philanthropic CSR on OI. The results also show that OI increases firm innovation and financial performance. Originality/value CSR enables firms to build wild, deep and trust-based relationships with external actors, which may benefit firms in open search of knowledge. However, it has not received adequate attention in the literature on OI. The findings contribute to the research on OI drivers from the perspective of social activities and enhance the understanding of how different types of CSR and firm proactiveness work together to influence OI.