Does risk management moderate the relationship between CEO power and corporate philanthropy?

By integrating upper echelons, agency, and stakeholder theories, we examine the relationship between CEO power and charitable cash donations. Utilizing a novel hand-collected dataset from the UK's insurance industry, our focus lies particularly on how risk management influences this relationship. We find that CEO power is positively related to charitable giving. However, alternative risk mitigation strategies play a moderating role in the CEO power-donations relationship, suggesting that in firms with alternative risk management strategies, CEOs are less likely to advocate for corporate giving as a method to mitigate business risks. Our results are robust to various endogeneity checks and alternative measures of CEO power. Our paper enriches the comprehension of the motives driving corporate philanthropy.