Social responsibility in new ventures: profiting from a long-term orientation

Socially responsible activities help create business value, develop strategic resources, and insure against risks, but also cost money and distract management. These prior findings are mainly based on established corporations and may not extend to new ventures in which the liability of newness may suppress some positive effects and amplify some negative impacts of socially responsible activities. New ventures whose strategic decisions have a long-term orientation, however, are able to counteract their liability of newness and thereby generate net positive economic returns. We tested these relationships by surveying the chief executive officers and presidents and studying the signature Web sites of 149 new ventures.