1 What type of CSR engagement suits my firm best? Evidence from an abductively-derived typology Abstract Why do firms engage in socially responsible activities? Prior discussion around this issue mainly applies a uniform conceptualization of corporate social responsibility (CSR) or focuses on distinct CSR activities. These perspectives are surprising given that firms respond to expectations of social responsibility through unique and often multifaceted sets of voluntary behaviors. To address the limitations of these perspectives, this study first develops a novel typology of divergent repertoires of CSR activities that reveal different constellations of CSR engagement. We, then, follow a novel analytical strategy which specifies complex interdependencies among different CEO-, firm-, and contextualspecific characteristics and reveals the causal pathways that explain alternative CSR constellations. The findings confirm that the actual multiple effects of each characteristic on CSR engagement are not only contingent on the combinations of additional characteristics that synergistically occur in a given causal recipe but also on the unique CSR constellation under consideration in specific contexts. Keywords: Corporate social responsibility; CEO characteristics; contextual characteristics; empirical typology; firm characteristics 2 What type of CSR engagement suits my firm best? Evidence from an abductively-derived typology 1. Introduction Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reflects the extent to which a firm actively engages in social initiatives in response to a wide set of stakeholder interests and expectations (McWilliams & Siegel, 2000). A central question receiving a lot of attention in strategic management is, Why do firms engage in activities related to corporate social responsibility? Prior literature suggests that the reasons are manifold and can range from idiosyncratic characteristics of executives such as beliefs and values (Weaver, Reynolds, & Brown, 2014), firm characteristics that trigger profit-maximizing incentives (McWilliams & Siegel, 2001), and institutional pressures that lead firms to resort to isomorphic behavior (Campbell, 2007). Prior studies in the field, however, tend to neglect how these factors combine with each other to explain engagement in CSR activities. This topic deserves further consideration, since no single factor in isolation can adequately explain the different responses to social pressures (Crilly, Zollo, & Hansen, 2012). While firm characteristics have been very helpful in explaining how firms respond to stakeholder expectations (e.g., Crilly, Zollo, & Hansen, 2012), individual decision-makers do not always act in unison (e.g., Crilly, Zollo, & Hansen, 2012; Pratt & Foreman, 2000). This finding is observable primarily because individuals make decisions based on their own interests and perceptions. Further, individual decision-makers have to make sense of the institutional pressures facing their firms (Crilly, Zollo, & Hansen, 2012; George, Chattopadhyay, Sitkin, & Barden, 2006). Executives’ perceptions, however, may not always converge 3 when institutional factors push for engagement in different CSR activities (Crilly, Zollo, & Hansen, 2012; Fiss & Zajac, 2004). Further, the discussion in the literature about why and how firms engage in social initiatives has been mainly established with a uniform conceptualization of CSR in mind or by focusing on distinct CSR activities. These perspectives are surprising in light of the growing recognition that CSR is not only multidimensional but also highly mutable (Jayachandran, Kalaignanam, & Eilert, 2013). In fact, the conceptual distinction of CSR dimensions made by many scholars to construct aggregate measures of CSR demonstrates the high-worth of explaining the relative salience of different CSR activities and therefore, the factors that drive cross-firm variations. Although a number of prior studies provides valuable insights into the factors that influence the engagement in individual CSR activities (e.g., Julian & Ofori-dankwa, 2013), explanations for variations that crystallize around diverse repertoires of CSR activities have not yet received much attention in the strategy literature. These variations, however, are relevant particularly for CSR research because organizations respond to expectations of social responsibility through multifaceted sets of voluntary behaviors (Grant, 2012). The present study addresses these gap