Prior confronting findings on the association between corporate social responsibility and profitability show that some aspects remain to be clarified about this binomial. Contributing to this body of research is particularly interesting in the case of the exporters to understand the role that corporate social responsibility may play in improving export performance. This study aims to determine the impact of firms' corporate social responsibility efforts on their export performance by examining innovation and the legal form of the organization as factors that could affect this relationship. Using data from 107 agri‐food companies, we found that corporate social responsibility has no direct effect on export performance. However, our results show that innovation serves as a mediator in this relationship. It was also found that companies that adopt associative legal forms (i.e., cooperatives) benefit more from their social responsibility practices than companies that adopt non‐associative legal forms.

This study aims to contribute to the existing debate on the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) orientation on different measures of business performance through the proposal of a conceptual model. Drawing on stakeholder theory, we conceptualize CSR as a broad and multidimensional construct with seven dimensions: employees, partners, customers, farmers, environment, community, and competition. We also extend the concept of business performance, which includes tangible variables, namely financial performance (FP) and export performance (EXP), as well as intangible variables, namely image and reputation (IR) and the satisfaction of relevant stakeholders (SS). The research context of this study is the agri-food sector in southeastern Spain. This sector has been the focus of attention of numerous researchers due to the relevance that social and environmental aspects have had in its development. To test the proposed model, the partial least-squares technique (PLS-SEM) was applied to data collected by means of a survey from a sample of 107 companies, which represent 81.4% of the turnover of the sector analyzed. The results show that CSR has a positive effect on financial performance, improves the volume and performance of exports, positively affects the corporate image and reputation, and increases the level of satisfaction of relevant stakeholders. Further research should examine the model from the perceptions of other stakeholders (e.g., customers, employees, and suppliers), using a longitudinal research design and exploring other contexts.

Examining drivers and outcomes of corporate social responsibility in agri-food firms | Antonio Martos-Pedrero, David Jiménez-Castillo, Francisco Joaquín Cortés-García | Agricultural Journals

Customers, civil organizations, the media, and society demand that companies behave in ways beyond regulatory requirements concerning social and environmental issues. Therefore, companies are striving to adapt to these new requirements and to express their commitment to stakeholders through their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy. The values and principles of cooperatives make them ideal for responsible business management within the framework of CSR. Almeria is a province in southeastern Spain and it is one of the areas with the highest concentration of agribusiness in Europe. This paper aims to empirically verify whether the CSR orientation of agricultural cooperatives in this province are greater than that of other companies because of the application of these principles. Or, if globalization and competition is pushing these organizations to abandon their principles and values while losing their distinctive identity. A cluster analysis was applied to a representative sample of 107 fruit and vegetable production‐commercialization companies, and this included five dimensions of study applying the stakeholder theory: partners, employees, customers, farmers, and the environment. According to their legal form, we concluded that these entities do not significantly differ in their corporate social responsibility strategy. The Mann‐Whitney nonparametric analysis indicates that only the employee dimension shows significant differences depending on the legal form.

Asociación Interprofesional para el Desarrollo Agrario AIDA. Información Técnica Económica Agraria ITEA.