Corporate social responsibilities (CSR) in China : evidence from manufacturing in Guangdong province

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has attracted attention from not only the competitive business world but also the academia. Meanwhile, China, as a developing country, has aroused global interest with her vigorous economy. This study intends to study how Chinese enterprises look at CSR, how far they have incorporated CSR into their business practices, and benefits brought about by CSR. There are both qualitative and quantitative study involved. The qualitative part draws on in-depth case studies to investigate corporate social responsibility (CSR) in manufacturing in China by addressing three questions, how do Chinese enterprises conceive of CSR, how well have they been doing in CSR, and what are the benefits of undertaking CSR. Results from the qualitative cases show that the 10 factories studied have taken environmental, employee and community responsibility seriously, while relatively less attention was paid to supplier responsibility. Benefits of undertaking both environmental and employee responsibilities vary from employees' increased pride as members of the organization to better reputation in the community and workplace and better guanxi with local governmental departments, such as the EPB. The quantitative part examines the relationship between the implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and employee attitudes, focusing in particular on whether the implementation of CSR is associated with employee commitment to the company. Drawing on social identity theory, it was hypothesized that CSR is positively associated with employee commitment, and that the relationship is mediated by perceived organizational identity and construed external image. Respondents include managers and manufacturing employees (n=343) from 30 cutlery factories in a city in Guangdong Province, China. CSR was assessed by managers at the organizational level, and employee attitudes were self-reported by individual-level employees. HLM analysis indicated that CSR was significantly associated with affective and normative commitment, and perceived organizational identity and construed external image fully mediated the impacts of CSR on affective commitment and partially mediated its impacts on normative commitment. The result of the quantitative study is consistent with that of the qualitative one. While empirical evidence on CSR in China is scarce, this study suggests that CSR practices elicit a positive response from employees and provide benefits in terms of reputation building. Implications for the theory and managerial practices are also discussed.