The Role of Financing and Human Capital Policieson the Correlation between Corporate Social Responsibility and Innovation

The main purpose of the present research is to study the intervening role of financing and human capital policies on the correlation between social responsibility and innovation of corporations accepted in Tehran Stock Exchange.

Five hypotheses were introduced in line with the research objectives. Multiple linear regression and mixed data were used to test the research hypotheses. The statistical sample consisted of 102 corporations accepted in Tehran Stock Exchange that were chosen by convenient sampling during the years 2013 to 2020.

The results indicated that there is a significantly negative relation between corporate social responsibility and corporate innovation. Furthermore, social responsibility has a significantly negative effect on human capital. Thus, according to the results of multiple regression, the intervening role of human capital between corporate social responsibility and innovation is confirmed. Moreover, the results showed that social responsibility has no significant impact on financing policy. Therefore, the variable of financing policy does not intervene in the relation between corporate social responsibility and innovation. Companies should invest in innovative activities and social responsibility to gain legitimacy and respond to different expectancy of beneficiaries.

Corporates that fulfill their social responsibility actively, have more access to credit and gain better debt conditions. Companies which have a tendency towards social responsibility activities, bring more innovation in their products and procedures due to different reasons. By performing social responsibility activities, they support motivation, participation, and commitment of human resources in order to increase corporate innovation.