Competing for Government Procurement Contracts: The Role of Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract

This study examines whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) improves firms' competitiveness in the market for government procurement contracts. To obtain exogenous variation in firms' social engagement, I exploit a quasi-natural experiment provided by the enactment of state-level constituency statutes, which allow directors to consider stakeholders' interests when making business decisions. Using constituency statutes as instrumental variable (IV) for CSR, I find that companies with higher CSR receive more procurement contracts. The effect is stronger for more complex contracts and in the early years of the government-company relationship, suggesting that CSR helps mitigate information asymmetries by signaling trustworthiness. Moreover, the effect is stronger in competitive industries, indicating that CSR can serve as a differentiation strategy to compete against other bidders.

Keywords: government procurement contracts; corporate social responsibility; non-market strategy; information asymmetry; trust

JEL Classification: D82, H57, M14