Top Management’s Motivation in Poverty Alleviation: Political Responsibility or Emotional EmpathyOn the Regulatory Effect of Managerial Discretion

Purpose/Significance In the process of promoting poverty alleviation and rural revitalization, improving enthusiasm of enterprises for poverty alleviation is key to promote industrial poverty alleviation and implement industrial prosperity, as well as make policies for promoting rural revitalization. Design/Methodology Using the data from listed companies engaging in poverty alleviation activities between 2016 and 2019, the paper examines motives of business leaders whose firms participating in poverty alleviation by uncovering the black box of top management team’s decision-making process. Conclusions/Findings (1) Top executives are motivated by both political responsibility and emotional empathy to engage in poverty alleviation activities. (2) When top executives are motivated by political responsibility, they are more likely to engage in poverty alleviation when internal resources are abundant. When firm profitability is high, while external institutional environment does not affect the relationship between executives’ political responsibility motivation and corporate poverty alleviation investment. (3) When top executives are motivated by emotional empathy, managerial discretion has no moderating effects, since purely intrinsic motivation that generates from emotion is less volatile to contingency factors including internal resources and external institutional environment.