Abstract: By making use of the data from the A-share listed companies during the period of 2003-2016, this paper analyzes the relationship between the tournament motivation for executives’ promotion and corporate social responsibility through measuring the tournament motivation for executives’ promotion with compensation gap. The findings reveal that the tournament motivation for executives’ promotion can stimulate the enterprises to bear more social responsibilities. The further analysis finds out that the perception of the executives towards the probability of the future promotion will affect the relationship between the tournament motivation for executives’ promotion and the corporate social responsibilities, the higher the probability of executives’ promotion, the stronger the incentive effect will be, and the enterprises will be promoted to bear more social responsibilities. If the succeeding executive was a lower-rank executive with excellent performance, the effect of tournament motivation for promotion will be better.

Key words: executives; promotion incentive; social responsibility; CEO changes