Does temporal orientation matter for CSR strategies?

While it has been widely accepted that corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy focuses on firms' long-term development, the role of temporal consideration in understanding antecedents of firms' CSR strategy remains to be addressed. To examine the effects of temporal orientation on CSR strategy formation, we surveyed managers from 383 small- and medium- sized enterprises in China. Our findings indicate that firms' long- term orientation mediates the effect of managers; moral motivation on CSR; and that it can also be triggered by stakeholder demands, thus mediating the relationship between stakeholder demands and CSR. Specifically, we found that value chain stakeholder demands have a greater influence on altruistic policy-based CSR, and institutional stakeholder demands have a greater influence on financial-based CSR.