Abstract
A growing body of literature focuses on the connection between CEOs’ pre-career experiences and firms’ strategic choices and policies proposing that CEOs’ set of values and beliefs, crucial factors in their own strategic choice-making processes, are imprinted by such experiences. I argue that CEOs who have been exposed to the pro-social, Confucian ideology during their childhood, i.e. the period of highest ‘susceptibility’, will reflect these social values into their firms, among others, when it comes to their firms’ corporate science strategy. Recognizing their firms’ potential to contribute positively to society by increasing the stock of publicly available knowledge, a metric that is directly related to innovation and social benefits, pro-social CEOs will tend to publish more of their firms’ research through scientific publications, therefore, attaining their personal-life, Confucian goals. These pro-social predictions are supported by an analysis of Chinese listed firms between 2007 and 2021.