Ownership versus management effects on corporate social responsibility concerns in large family and founder firms

•Emotions influence CSR strategy in family firms.•Family and founder firms differ from other firms regarding CSR.•Family and founder ownership is associated with fewer CSR concerns.•Family and founder management is associated with more CSR concerns.

Based on socioemotional wealth theory, we argue that family and founder firms differ from other firms with respect to corporate social responsibility concerns. We further argue that the ownership and management dimensions of founder firms have opposite effects. Using a dataset of large public firms in the US, we show that family and founder ownership is associated with fewer corporate social responsibility concerns (CSR concerns), whereas the presence of a family and founder CEO is associated with greater CSR concerns. We conclude that it is reasonable to distinguish between family and founder firms and their respective ownership and management dimensions when analyzing CSR in large firms.