Abstract: What encourages private enterprises to donate by sacrificing their resources? Based on the samples of 2915 private enterprises, this paper explores the impacts of enterprise size and family involvement on the motivation and behavior of the donations made by private enterprises. The results show the relationship between firm size and donation behavior is not simply linear, but a U-shaped one. The small scale enterprises have higher demand for legitimacy, so they make charitable donations actively. The large scale enterprises would increase their donations along with the improvement of their organizational visibility, while the medium scale enterprises had the lowest level of donation behaviors. In addition, family involvement can play a negative regulatory role in the relationship between firm size and charitable donations, which would weaken the U-shaped relationship between them. The empirical results suggest that the private enterprises would carry out the charitable donations for different strategic motives; while the family firms that try to preserve their internal drive of the social emotional wealth would weaken the strategic motivation for private enterprises’ charitable donations. This study reveals the motivation behind the donation behavior of private enterprises and provides some suggestions for the implementation of corporate social responsibility in the context of China’s institutional situations.

Key words: enterprise size; donation behavior; U-shaped relationship; family involvement