Abstract: From the perspective of altruistic motivation, this paper examines the relationship between the economic situation in which a CEO firstly enters the workplace and the corporate donation by making use of the data of Chinese A share listed companies from the year 2008 to 2016. The results show that the economic situation when the CEO enters the workplace for the first time is significantly and positively correlated to corporate donations. The findings of further studies indicate that this relationship can be positively adjusted by the environmental dynamics in which enterprises are located and the managers’ decision power owned by the CEO, i.e., the stronger the environmental dynamics of the CEO’ enterprise, the greater the manager’s decision power owned by the CEO, and the smaller the donation value made by the enterprise in which a CEO works for the first time under relatively poor economic situation.

Key words: corporate donation; imprinting theory; the economic situation when entering the workplace firstly; altruistic tendency