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| The Supply Chain Spillover Effects of Mandatory Customer Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure: Based on the Suppliers’ Perspective |
| XIE Rui, WANG Hao, YI Jingtao
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| School of Economics and Trade, Hunan University; Business School, Renmin University of China |
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Abstract The importance of supply chain information disclosure and supply chain corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasingly prominent. From the perspective of policy orientation, the scope of information disclosure regulations has gradually expanded to the supply chain dimension. Both the United States and the European Union have enacted policies to conduct due diligence on supply chains, requiring enterprises to disclose environmental and social risks within their supply chains and emphasizing social responsibility issues such as environmental protection and labor rights in the supply chain. From the perspective of enterprise practice, whether suppliers meet social responsibility requirements is essential for the sustainability of the supply chain. Good social responsibility performance has become a key factor for customer enterprises in selecting and evaluating supplier partners. However, there is no direct requirement for supply chain disclosure currently in China’s mandatory CSR information disclosure policies, and existing research has focused solely on the impact of mandatory CSR information disclosure policies on the enterprises themselves. Therefore, further evaluating the supply chain spillover effects of existing disclosure policies and analyzing the mechanisms by which mandatory customer CSR information disclosure influences suppliers’ CSR performance are of great practical significance for the development of sustainable supply chains.
Based on supply chain data and corporate social responsibility data provided by the CSMAR database from 2008 to 2021, this paper empirically examines the supply chain spillover effects and mechanisms of mandatory customer CSR information disclosure from the perspective of suppliers. Based on stakeholder theory and resource dependence theory, this paper constructs an analytical framework for the impact of mandatory customer CSR information disclosure on suppliers’ CSR performance, and combines organizational legitimacy theory and signaling theory to analyze the two channels of supply chain spillover effects: “supply chain compliance pressure” and “supply chain financial support”. The study found that mandatory customer CSR disclosure has a spillover effect on suppliers’ CSR performance. This spillover effect is mainly driven by “supply chain compliance pressure” and “supply chain financial support” channels. Among them, the “supply chain compliance pressure” channel is mainly reflected in the evaluation, screening, and management of suppliers by customer enterprises after being required to disclose corporate social responsibility information, adopting a diversified supply chain configuration mode to transmit the compliance pressure of improving CSR performance to the suppliers. In this context, when suppliers have a higher level of customer dependence, supply chain compliance pressure more significantly boosts suppliers’ CSR performance. The “supply chain financial support” channel reveals that when customer enterprises are required to disclose CSR information and the suppliers have a higher level of customer dependence, the financing credit enhancement from customer enterprises alleviates suppliers' external financing constraints to improve suppliers’ CSR performance. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the supply chain spillover effect of mandatory customer CSR disclosure is more pronounced when suppliers have a lower level of industry competition, a higher level of digital transformation, and higher transparency in supply chain relationships. Extended analysis reveals that this spillover phenomenon only currently exists at the level of first-tier suppliers. Furthermore, this spillover effect is asymmetric. Mandatory supplier CSR disclosure does not have supply chain spillover effects on customer enterprises. Finally, there is also no supply chain spillover effect when customer enterprises voluntarily disclose CSR information.
This paper proposes the following policy recommendations: First, accurately identify the actors responsible for mandatory disclosure policies, stimulate their exemplary role in CSR performance, promote upstream transmission of CSR disclosure guidance from customer enterprises to suppliers, and encourage listed companies to gradually focus on and improve their performance in CSR and sustainable development. Second, establish unified standards for CSR information disclosure and CSR performance evaluation, encourage listed companies to disclose information on their supply chain CSR performance, and promote sustainable CSR development throughout the supply chain.
The possible marginal contributions of this paper are: First, it broadens the scope of CSR research from a supply chain perspective, extending the corporate boundary of CSR governance to the entire supply chain, which is a valuable supplement to CSR research. Second, based on the perspective of supply chain responsibility, this paper expands the research on the mechanisms of supply chain spillover effects through two channels: “supply chain compliance pressure” and “supply chain financial support.” Third, this paper analyzes the supply chain spillover effects of CSR from multiple dimensions, clarifies the heterogeneous impact of supplier enterprise characteristics and supply chain relationship characteristics on supply chain CSR spillovers, enriches the understanding of the level and direction of supply chain CSR spillovers, and clarifies the differential impact of mandatory disclosure and voluntary disclosure on supply chain spillover effects for customer enterprises.
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Received: 04 June 2025
Published: 01 April 2026
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