Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an increasingly important element in today’s business world. And China is no exception. CSR concept was not given much attention to by Chinese companies until China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. Due to the impact of western standards and business culture arisen from multinational corporations’ (MNCs) operations in the Chinese market, CSR got promoted and integrated in many Chinese companies.

My topic of choice revolves around the communication of CSR practices in China, and specifically “Corporate social responsibility communication of Chinese and global corporations in China”. It explores how the Chinese and global companies performing in China approach their CSR communication. Moreover, how a country of origin or an industry can affect companies’ CSR communication.

The importance of this topic lies within the importance of CSR in China itself. The labor and environmental practices of Chinese companies were subject to question and examination. In 2007, many human rights groups raised serious concerns on the use of “slave labor” in some parts of China, where many people were tricked into working as slave laborers, some of them even under-aged. Simultaneously, the industrialization and urbanization in China caused an environmental challenge which poses a global challenge.

Today, many companies are dedicated to build considerable websites in order to Promote themselves to the public and different stakeholders. Due to the importance and extensive use of corporate websites for the communication of CSR, it is beneficial to examine how Chinese and global companies operating in China utilize their websites for the former.

The research was conducted by Lu Tang & Hongmei Li by analyzing the contents of Fortune 100 Chinese companies and Fortune 100 global companies with Chinese operations, in order to answer three main questions: How do Chinese companies approach CSR communication? Are there any differences in CSR communication between Chinese and global companies? Do industrial differences affect CSR communication?

This paper studied how Chinese and global companies performing in China communicate their CSR practices. By using samples of Chinese-language websites, Lu Tang & Hongmei Li analyzed 100 websites from the Fortune 100 Chinese companies and 44 Chinese-language websites from the Fortune 100 global companies. Finally, 144 websites were downloaded for coding and data analyzing, in order to answer the questions mentioned before.

The findings identified three major approaches to CSR communication. CSR as ad hoc philanthropy which include items like discretionary rationality (i.e. corporations need to contribute to the welfare of society), which contributes mainly through donation, sponsorship and volunteering. CSR as strategic philanthropy which is similar but differs from CSR as ad hoc philanthropy in a way that it is always related to the core operations of the company (i.e. energy company contributes to academic research on energy development). CSR as ethical business practices which is based on economic, legal and ethical rationalities (i.e. fair treatment of employees).

To answer if a country of origin affects CSR communication, Chi-square tests were conducted. The findings disclosed more similarities than differences between Chinese and global companies. The similarities were manifested in their attribution of CSR commitment to discretionary, ethical, legal, and economic rationalities. And contribution to education, disaster

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