Does digital transformation foster corporate social responsibility? Evidence from Chinese mining industry

Mining activities induce some social problems, such as polluted environments, the destruction of aquatic live, which have long been debated by scholars and practitioners. To mitigate this problem, underpinning dynamic capability view, our study explores whether the digital transformation (DT) affects corporate social responsibility (CSR) by using 1308 Chinese mining A-shared listed firms from 2010 to 2021, and how the potential relationship is moderated by environmental uncertainty (EU) and supply chain concentration (SCC). Applying fixed effects regressions, we find that DT fosters CSR in the mining industry, but CSR performance is weakened when DT processed at higher EU and SCC respectively. Our findings enrich the literature on CSR of mining industry and highlight that DT is an important driver that shapes CSR practice. •A multidimensional measure of mining firmsdigitalizationis established by using text mining methods .•Digitalization positively impacts corporate social resposibility (CSR) in Chinese mining industry.•High environmental uncertainty weakens the CSR implications of digitalization in Chinese mining industry.•High supply chain concentration weakens the CSR implications of digitalization in Chinese mining industry.