Leadership and Corporate Social Irresponsibility 1 Running Head: Leadership and Corporate Social Irresponsibility Illuminating the Black Box: the Role of Leaders on Organizational Outcomes

Illuminating the black box: The role of leaders on organizational outcomes Abstract While managers and researchers have invested considerable effort into understanding what factors affect corporate social responsibility (CSR), less is known about corporate social irresponsibility (CSiR). Drawing on strategic leadership and moral licensing research, we address this gap by considering the relationship between CSR and CSiR. We predict that prior CSR is positively associated with subsequent CSiR because the moral credits achieved through CSR enables leaders to engage in less ethical stakeholder treatment. Further, we hypothesize that leaders’ moral identity will moderate the CSR-CSiR relationship, such that the relationship will be stronger when CEOs are high moral identifiers rather than low moral identifiers. Through an archival study of 49 Fortune 500 firms we find support for our hypotheses.