Corporate Social Responsibility Under Authoritarian Capitalism: Dynamics and Prospects of State-Led and Society-Driven CSR

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the seemingly oxymoronic context of Chinese “authoritarian capitalism.” Following an introduction to the emergence of authoritarian capitalism, the article considers the emergence of CSR in China using Matten and Moon’s framework of explaining CSR development in terms both of a business system’s historic institutions and of the impacts of new institutionalism on corporations arising from societal pressures in their global and national environments. We find two forms of CSR in China, reflecting the “multiplexity” of its business system: one in the mainly family-owned small and medium-sized enterprise sector reflecting concern with local reputation, and another in the corporate, mainly state-owned enterprise (SOE) sector, reflecting global and national societal expectations. We investigate the dynamics of CSR in China through the interplay of the global and national societal pressures and mediating and even leading roles played by the State and the Party. We consider the conceptual integrity and practical prospects for “state-led society-driven” CSR and future research opportunities, including those opened up by the three contributing articles to this special issue.

Keywords

corporate social responsibility authoritarian capitalism China business systems state-led CSR

This article opens with the puzzle of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in China: another CSR oxymoron? An oxymoron squared? It continues by providing an analysis of the interplay of political, economic, and social forces in the Chinese business system which have led to the circumstances in which the concept of CSR under authoritarian capitalism can even be countenanced. This examination is done in two parts, the first through an analysis of the institutional framework of Chinese business and, second, and in this context, an analysis of the rise of CSR therein. This analysis is followed by the presentation of a research agenda for CSR in China. The article concludes with a summary of the prospects for the concept and practice of “authoritarian CSR.”

CSR in China: Another Oxymoron?

Scholars of CSR will be all too familiar with the skeptic’s adage that the concept is an oxymoron. The assumption is that corporations are incapable of social responsibility and, depending on point of view, are either most socially responsible when maximizing profits (M. Friedman, 1970) or most suited to social irresponsibility by virtue of their profit-making orientation (Bakan, 2005). The idea of CSR in China for the skeptic looking like an oxymoron squared is two-edged, reflecting the “multiplexity” of China’s business system in which two very different business systems coexist (Witt & Redding, 2013), which together are captured in the concept “authoritarian capitalism” (Witt & Redding, 2014).

Since 1949, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has officially been a communist system. Moreover, since 1956, it has been a planned economy following the collectivization of agriculture and the transformation of private-owned firms into collectively owned enterprises in urban areas. Since the onset of the economic reforms (“Reform and Opening up”) initiated by Deng Xiaoping from 1978 and the emergence of “Capitalism With Chinese characteristics” (Huang, 2008; Naughton, 1993; Peck & Zhang, 2013), there has been a remarkable growth of domestically and foreign-owned business. Nevertheless, the role of the Communist Party of China (CPC), along with the Chinese state and regional governments, has been pivotal in the operation of the economy. This role is principally through the numerous, and strategically critical, publicly owned corporations. Wikipedia (2015) lists more than 120 state-owned enterprises (SOEs), banks, and insurance companies owned by central government alone, and “Fixing China Inc” (2014) numbers a total of about 155,000 government-owned enterprises.

The second vantage point for seeing CSR in China as an oxymoron relates to “the other” Chinese business system, the private sector. Following Deng Xiaoping’s primary focus on economic development and the associated message that “to get rich is glorious,” many firms have put economic goals as their single motive (Ip, 2009; Naughton, 1993). Although many of these firms would be classed as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a significant number have become part of global supply chains and export their products across the world, leading to the connotation of China as the factory of the world. As aptly analyzed by Ip (2009), the relentless pursuit of economic gain was deemed legitimate by many entrepreneurs even if often at the expense of stakeholders such as employees and the environment. This pursuit has been illustrated by examples of Chinese supplier firms circumventing compliance with CSR codes of conduct imposed by multinational corporations (MNCs; Roberts & Engardio, 2006; Sum & Ngai, 2005).

This state of affairs is compounded in the absence of a civil society counterweight which has been so critical to the origins (Carroll, Lipartito, Post, & Werhane, 2012) and recent growth of CSR in the West. This absence results from the observation that under the rule of the CPC, there has been very little in the way of civil society, which numerous commentators associate with CSR by virtue of the social sanction that it can impose on business, or the “social gaze” (Boswell, 1983). Even with the more recent growth of social impulses assisted by social media, Chinese civil society remains heavily tempered. Nongovernment organizations (NGOs), domestic and international, require government license, and the off-line print, audio, and audiovisual media are heavily regulated (Stockmann & Gallagher, 2011; Tsang, 2009; Wu & Chan, 2012).

Notwithstanding the grounds for skepticism that this account might offer about CSR in China, by the measurement of company self-descriptions, at least, there has been something of a CSR boom in China in the last decade. When Chapple and Moon (2005) commenced their longitudinal research into CSR in Asia in 2002, they originally intended to include China in the study of company self-representations of CSR. However, that plan was aborted as there were so few cases of Chinese companies representing any CSR. But by the second iteration (2005) in the research, there were enough Chinese companies describing their CSR for China to be included in the sample and again for the third iteration (2009; Chapple, Moon, Herzig, & Slager, 2014). By 2009, 86% of the largest corporations of China provided some English language account of the CSR on the company website. Although this proportion is equally lowest with the Philippines of the six country study (the other countries are India, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand), it still represents a remarkable transformation. This indication of company engagement in CSR is also evident in Chinese companies now constituting the sixth largest national group of signatories of the United Nations Global Compact, and the involvement of Chinese delegates in the creation of the International Standards Organization (ISO) ISO 26000 CSR standard (Harper Ho, 2013; Tan-Mullins & Hofman, 2014).

One needs to keep in mind, however, that this CSR engagement still represents a rather limited category of firms in China as generally only the largest firms, state-owned and private, have become involved in CSR reporting (as is generally true of CSR organizational membership and reporting). There is much less clarity on the CSR activities of the millions of other firms in China, including both larger firms and SMEs, although some studies indicate that an increasing number of Chinese firms attend to CSR (Hofman, Wu, & Liu, 2014; Tang & Tang, 2012; Yin & Zhang, 2012). Chinese supplier firms that previously circumvented CSR codes of conduct prescribed by their client MNCs are reported to have moved toward compliance (Egels-Zanden, 2014).

These albeit preliminary indicators of CSR in China therefore pose a challenge to both sets of CSR in China skeptics: those who are skeptical about the “authoritarian” elements and those who are skeptical about the “hyper capitalist” elements. But, they also pose a challenge to the less skeptical analysts who associate CSR with liberal democratic political, economic, legal, and civil society underpinnings. These analysts would presume in general terms that CSR was associated with a pluralist political system and accountable government, largely private and competitive but regulated markets, an independent judiciary, and an independent civil society capable of holding both government and business accountable.

So the challenge is whether and how Chinese authoritarian capitalism can advance CSR, and in addressing this challenge, other challenges arise such as how the blend of multiplexity of Chinese capitalism can support CSR and how civil society will play its part. This latter point is vital given most assumptions about CSR involve responsibility, responsiveness, and accountability of business to society.

This article now considers the nature of authoritarian capitalism which has not only fostered the Chinese economic miracle in the past three decades or so but also underpins the development and internalization of CSR in China potentially into the future. In the next section, the key features of business and society relations in China and their formative influence on CSR are described. This description will be followed by an analysis of the latest developments in China which influence CSR dissemination and internalization. Then the article identifies a future research agenda and locates therein the three other articles that make up this special issue. A concluding section summarizes the prospects for CSR under authoritarian capitalism.

Authoritarian Capitalism as an Institutional Framework for CSR in China

By most conventional economic indicators, China has become one of the major global players. China exceeded Japan as Asia’s largest economy in 2010 and is now regarded, along with the United States, as the world’s economic “weather maker.” One of the puzzles that has challenged scholars is a clear understanding of the underlying economic, political, and social processes that have provided domestic foundations and drivers for this fast economic expansion. A range of scholars have argued that these processes cannot be captured under traditional notions of capitalism, and within the varieties of capitalism literature, the puzzle has led several scholars to invent specific terms such as Authoritarian Capitalism (Witt & Redding, 2014), Centrally Managed Capitalism (N. Lin, 2010), and Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics (Peck & Zhang, 2013). Our approach is that in understanding the operation and nature of the Chinese economic system, we will find clues as the emergence and development of its CSR.

In an investigation of fundamental features of CSR across developed market economies, Matten and Moon (2008) argued that differences between liberal market economies such as the United States and coordinated market economies such as Germany have a strong imprint on the nature of CSR in these economies (see also Aguilera, Rupp, Williams, & Ganapath, 2007; Campbell, 2007). Based on this line of reasoning, it follows that the specific character of capitalism in China and the specific nature of its business system including business and society relations will be visible in the nature of CSR in China and Chinese firms.

Although the number of studies that investigate CSR in China is increasing, the number of studies with a focus on understanding core characteristics of Chinese CSR is still limited, and most studies have adopted CSR as a more or less “given” “Western” framework. In this article, we will explore in more details features of the Chinese business and society relations that have a fundamental imprint on the emergence, nature, and development of Chinese CSR by deploying the Matten and Moon (2008) framework.

Matten and Moon (2008) offered a framework to understand how CSR has developed reflecting both the host national business system and the increasingly international organizational field of companies (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

CSR and institutional context of the corporation.

Looking first at the political system, as we have noted, the authoritarian state, strongly influenced by the Communist Party, has been the dominant feature of the Chinese business system (N. Lin, 2010; Redding & Witt, 2009; Witt & Redding, 2014). Compared with developed economies as the United States and the United Kingdom where a key role of government is to regulate economic behavior, in China, the state itself “acts as a capitalist” (N. Lin, 2010, p. 64). It therefore contrasts with the United States, whose comparatively limited state activity in the market complemented by company-level assumption of social responsibility (see also Kaplan, 2014) led Matten and Moon (2008) to label its dominant style of CSR “explicit.” The definition of explicit CSR is threefold: It “describes corporate activities that assume responsibility for the interests of society; consists of voluntary corporate policies, programs, and strategies; and incentives and opportunities are motivated by the perceived expectations of different stakeholders of the corporation” (Matten & Moon, 2008, Table 1, p. 410).

Table 1.

CSR in China in Business and Management Research.

	“CSR in China” in Asian management and business journals (n of articles)^a	“China” in CSR journals (n of articles)^b
2000-2004	1	39
2005-2009	2	93
2010-2014	11	142

Note. Excluding articles on Hong Kong, including articles about China and other countries. Scores result from a keyword search of article titles, keywords, and abstracts. These findings do not control for the number of articles published in the journals listed below per period. CSR = corporate social responsibility.

Asian Business & Management, Asia Pacific Business Review, and Asia Pacific Journal of Management. Search terms: CSR, corporate responsibility, ethics, sustainability.

Business & Society, Business Ethics: A European Review, Business Ethics Quarterly, and Journal of Business Ethics. Search terms: China, Chinese.

But China also contrasts with Matten and Moon’s (2008) comparative case of “implicit CSR,” in Western Europe, where institutions have evolved to “rules and laws defining the responsibility of corporations and other governmental and societal actors for particular social issues” (Matten & Moon, 2008, p. 413), often through the formation of a triad between government, employer associations, and unions (known also as “tripartism” or “neo-corporatism”; see Schmitter & Lehmbruch, 1979) in regulating welfare and insurance. China is distinct as, on one hand, government plays a more active role in the economy but, on the other hand, there are no tripartite relations or agreements among government, employers, and employees. Moreover, the activities of government are not regulated by society (through elections) or the judiciary. An assumption of the implicit model is that through the operation of tripartism and electoral democracy, the understandings and formal agreements about responsibility in the society are broadly consonant with societal values.

So, China appears incompatible both with the explicit and implicit models of CSR. Rather, the state intervenes through developing guidelines for CSR especially in SOEs and through mandating CSR reporting from the largest firms. Relative to the United States and Europe, China has a stronger regulatory orientation for CSR, viewing obedience of the law and paying taxes as core responsibilities of firms (Gond, Kang, & Moon, 2011). However, there is also significant scope for policy formulation and implementation at lower provincial and municipal levels in China which is encouraged as a basis for policy experimentation and best practice development (Huang, 2008; Nee & Opper, 2012). A range of local governments, therefore, have been leading in developing CSR programs and policies, such as the Pudong district in Shanghai and Wenzhou in Zhejiang province (B. Gao, Dietmar, & Edele, 2012).

Unlike the United States and Europe, China’s financial system is dominated by a number of state-owned banks that mainly provide capital to SOEs and some large private firms with strong relations to the government and party. Most private firms have limited access to finance from the major state-owned banks and therefore mostly rely on funding through relations (family, friends, collectives) or underground sources of finance (Li & Hsu, 2009; Newman, Gunnessee, & Hilton, 2012). Accordingly, we see relatively weak pressures from investors for CSR and from independent sources as witnessed in the ethical and social responsible investment movements in the United States and Europe (Slager, 2012).

China also has very distinctive education and labor systems when compared with the developed economies. Its labor unions are less about worker representation and more about representing the interests of the CPC in the labor sphere (Clarke, Lee, & Qi, 2004; E. Friedman & Lee, 2010). Examples of local unions promoting CSR are mostly focused on CSR as compliance with law and paying taxes. In the United States, although weak, labor unions focus on such CSR issues as labor rights in international supply chains, and in Europe, particularly in continental Europe (Preuss, Haunschild, & Matten, 2009), they are more integrated into broad CSR agendas. The Chinese secondary and tertiary education systems are not noted for encouraging critical thinking (Bush & Qiang, 2000) which does not encourage critical citizens, consumers, and workers to assess business and even promote CSR as they do in the United States and Europe (e.g., through fair trade movements; Micheletti, Follesdal, & Stolle, 2006).

Finally, one of the fundamental features of the Chinese cultural system is the importance of the “group” relative to the individual and of “relations” and associated mutual obligations relative to rules. In terms of group and relations, the family forms the basis of Chinese society, and the family, filial piety, and paternalism also play a central role in Confucianism as one of the most influential lines of thought within China (Boisot & Child, 1996; Drew, Kriz, & Redding, 2014; Redding, 2008). The State is often viewed as an extension of the family, and respect and obedience of citizens is maintained through benevolent action. The recent focus on “harmonious society” by the Chinese leaders, and the expected contribution of business to that harmonious society, can be seen as an adjustment from the dominantly economic-oriented policies to increased attention to social and environmental issues, and as a response to the increasing expectations of Chinese citizens regarding their welfare. Nevertheless, the harmonious society project is unambiguously a state-led, not a society-led, project.

These fundamental institutional features of Chinese society consequently have their imprint on more specific features of the business system (see Figure 1). First, we consider the nature of the firm and distinguish the two dominant types of firms in China which, respectively, reflect the points of skepticism regarding CSR noted above: the SOEs and private, mostly family-owned, firms. The SOEs are under relatively strong state and party influence, with key positions being appointed by the State Asset Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) and Communist Party (Naughton, 2007; Shi, Markoczy, & Stan, 2014). The objectives of the SOEs are therefore aligned with the objectives of the State and Communist Party and, in the past decade, have shifted from a dominant orientation on economic growth oriented with a combined focus on growth and a harmonious society. The CSR guidelines that SASAC issued in 2008 for SOEs are an illustration of this (L. W. Lin, 2010). The role of the family is prominent in private firms in China, with estimates of up to 80% or 90% of private firms being family-controlled (Chen, 2001; China Daily, 2014; Deng, Hofman, & Newman, 2013; Redding & Witt, 2009). Loyalty to the family and the family heritage are fundamental to this model. In addition, maintaining good relations with local government is important to ensure legitimacy and good reputation with the party and government, and developing CSR is seen as one of the ways to realize this (Chen, 2001; Shi et al., 2014; Su & He, 2010; Yin & Zhang, 2012).

Second, the impact of the institutional features on the organization of market processes (Figure 1) is strongly mediated by the nature of Chinese firms as briefly described. Again, two models emerge for the organization of markets; however, the role of family relations is critical and, second, the relations between firms and the Communist Party and government are important. These two models of organizing markets remain important in China notwithstanding the increasing importance of the rule of law and market-based principles. This duality also has a twofold impact on CSR, first via the strong regulatory nature of CSR in China on one hand, and the importance of CSR within family values and local reputation on the other.

Finally, the key institutional features of the Chinese business system affect upon the coordination and control systems (Figure 1). These features include business groups which provide inter-firm collaboration and the sector clusters where large numbers of firms from one industry provide both different components and products to clients often located in developed countries. In employment relations, the CPC plays a central role such as through its control of the union at local and firm levels. A key difference with most developed economies is that in China, the voice of and accountability to citizens is low, as evidenced in the worldwide governance indicators developed by the World Bank (www.govindicators.org). In the same vein, enterprises tend to be characterized by top-down management and control, with limited scope for employee participation, let alone wider stakeholder participation.

So, we find two forms of CSR under authoritarian capitalist China reflecting very different types of firm, market organization, and coordination and control systems. As Witt and Redding (2014) noted, China’s business system is comparatively “set in its evolutionary trajectory” and there has been “relatively limited institutional change compared with the far-reaching adjustments between . . . 1978 and 2000” notwithstanding its remarkable economic transformation (p. 11). Although each business system has yielded some CSR elements, they may nevertheless still serve to confirm the view of the skeptics that CSR in China is no more than a command and control, albeit highly decentralized (Xu, 2011), model of social and economic development on one hand and a local market strategy on the other.

We now turn to consider the contemporary dynamics of CSR in China and the prospects that these might offer for more socially responsible, responsive, and accountable business, in the context of this “state-dependent mercantilism” (Witt & Redding 2014, p. 11) which, if anything, has strengthened since the financial crisis: “the country/government moves in; the private sector retreats” (an unofficial slogan quoted in Witt & Redding, 2014, p. 16).

The Dynamics of CSR in China

Notwithstanding the institutional stability noted above which skeptics on both sides may expect to constrain further CSR development, we identify the dynamics which have contributed to CSR development and consider the prospects that they offer. These dynamics can be conceptualized as distinctive combinations of the coercive isomorphisms, mimetic process, and normative pressures that Matten and Moon (2008) associated with the assumption of explicit CSR in the organizational field of European business (Figure 1). As we shall see, however, in China, these factors in CSR communication, adoption, and development are heavily mediated by and even sourced from the Chinese State and Party. These dynamics are international pressures, civil society trends, and the ways in which the State and Party, and business have responded to those pressures and trends.

International pressure for CSR results from China’s engagement in globalization. Undoubtedly the spread of the concept of CSR to, and within, China has been triggered by the rapid integration of China and Chinese firms in the world economy in the past decades. China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) was a significant milestone in that process as it has led to a stronger recognition by Chinese government and industry that its practices need to be perceived as legitimate in the international arena (Y. Gao, 2009). MNCs from developed economies have felt increasing pressure to implement some form of CSR policy in its subsidiaries in China and put pressure on its suppliers to comply with codes of conduct to prevent irresponsible business practices. This external pressure toward Chinese firms has become increasingly internalized as in the past years as Chinese government and its regulatory bodies have put increasing pressure on firms to develop some form of CSR. This pressure is most pronounced in the focus on CSR reporting, with guidelines laid down for listed firms to develop CSR policy and reports (L. W. Lin, 2010; Marquis & Qian, 2014). The Chinese government has increasingly made clear that it expects firms not only to deliver economic benefits but also to contribute to the “harmonious society” such as laid out in its 5-year plans (L. W. Lin, & Milhaupt, 2013; See, 2009; L. Wang & Juslin, 2009). From the business system perspective, we therefore see that the initial pressure on private supplier firms from foreign MNCs has been accompanied by, and increasingly shifted to, a dominant role of the State in shaping and promoting CSR within firms. State-owned and listed firms, in particular, receive direct pressure from central government agencies. Several leading Chinese firms have received pressure to become global exemplar firms for CSR (Marquis, Yin, & Yang, 2011). Private firms receive continuous pressure from their supply chains, and more recently, local governments and local unions have begun to promote CSR.

The Chinese government has introduced new regulations and guidelines with the aim of strengthening corporate commitment to CSR, such as through the recently renewed Labor Contract Law, PRC Company Law, and central government guidelines on social responsibility implementation for SOEs (L. W. Lin, 2010; L. Wang & Juslin, 2009), it has demonstrated a willingness to press this on foreign firms (e.g., Walmart was required to allow trade unions in its China stores in 2006). Until the mid-2000s, CSR reporting by Chinese firms was still very limited. In 2004, for example, only 11 Chinese firms disclosed reports on their environmental and social performance (Lattemann, Fetscherin, Alon, Li, & Schneider, 2009). However, promoted by the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the number of Chinese-listed firms publishing CSR reports surged from 32 to 582 from 2006 to 2009, more than 1,000 in 2011, and more than 1,700 in 2012 (China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development [CCICED], 2013). Several studies have indicated that the level of social and environmental disclosure tends to be limited and reflects mainly the demands of powerful stakeholders such as investors, government, and shareholders (Dong, Burritt, & Qian, 2014). Alon, Lattemann, Fetscherin, Li, and Schneider (2010) reported in their comparison of CSR reporting practices in Brazil, Russia, India and China that Chinese firms are the least communicative on a number of CSR issues. In the most comprehensive study to date on CSR reporting by Chinese firms, Marquis and Qian (2014) found that “factors related to the firms exposure to domestic government” (p. 140) provide an explanation for the decision of firms to issue CSR reports, while increased likelihood of monitoring because of close ties with government leads companies to make their CSR reports more substantive. This trend is in line with the assessment that the nature of the Chinese firms and the coordination and control systems involves limited accountability and transparency, and that higher levels of accountability and transparency are strongly driven by government.

Here, then, we have a paradox of an ostensible increase in social responsibility, responsiveness, and accountability encouraged principally not only by state agencies but also by MNCs, but this encouragement is in relation to non-Chinese societies’ social expectations of business. So what pressures does Chinese society pose for CSR?

In the early development of CSR in China, the role of civil society has undoubtedly been less prominent than it was in the United States and Europe. As noted, domestic CSR reporting of large Chinese firms and Chinese suppliers’ compliance with codes of conducts of foreign MNCs have mainly been driven by inter-related international and governmental pressures. Domestic civil society actors such as communities, labor unions, and NGOs seem to exercise less influence on CSR development in Chinese firms. However, in the past decade, the space for civil society activism has expanded as a deliberate party−state functional approach toward putting pressure on firms that severely pollute or exploit labor (Fulda, Li, & Song, 2012; He & Warren, 2011; Tsang, 2009; van Rooij, Stern, & Fürst, 2016). As reducing pollution and labor exploitation is seen as necessary to ensure social stability and continued economic growth, evaluation of party–state officials increasingly includes performance on environmental aspects and, more recently, the ability to maintain stability in the workforce (as labor strikes and conflicts have been at a high in the past years; Chan & Hui, 2014; A. Wang, 2013). Contrary to the more antagonistic and independent role of civil society organizations in Western countries, a more party–state controlled form of civil society organization is visible in China.

Overall, then, we can identify twin CSR social dynamics: international societal expectations of business responsibility in China and Chinese societal expectations of business responsibility. Both of these dynamics continue to be mediated by the state and party, and both involve elements of business responsiveness. This combination is in keeping with wider insights into party–state and firm responses to civil society pressure. Observers have labeled this trend a shift to “consultative Leninism” (Tsang, 2009) and “authoritarian deliberation” (He & Warren, 2011). This labeling gives us some confidence about our own coinage of “State-led society-driven CSR.” This role of government in leading CSR need not be viewed as simply incompatible with CSR, but rather illustrative of approaches by different governments to encouraging business responsibility (see Gond et al., 2011) which are also supportive of wider governing strategies (Dentchev, Haezendonck, & van Balen, 2017; Knudsen, Moon, & Slager, 2015; Moon & Vogel, 2008).

Future Research

CSR in China research has certainly accelerated at quite a rate and is increasingly matching wider approaches to CSR research in focus and methodology (Moon & Shen, 2010; Lockett, Moon, & Visser, 2006). Table 1 presents data on CSR China research articles. These articles appeared in mainstream English language Asian Management & Business journals, and in articles with a “China” focus in the mainstream English language journals of Business Ethics and of Business and Society. It shows a dramatic growth of both sorts of articles over three periods: 2000-2004, 2005-2009, and 2010-2014 (albeit from a very low base in the case of Asian Management and Business journals).

In light of our analysis above, an important area for future research concerns the strategies of the State and Party in both deploying CSR for governance purposes and acting as the main mediator of societal demands to business. Already, the State and Party have shown a willingness to deploy CSR as a key element in their governing agendas, so will they continue to do so, and can they both achieve this while protecting SOEs from criticism? How effective will the State and Party be as they attempt both to stimulate and harness CSR? Under the new leadership of Xi Jinping, two key agenda items have been identified, anticorruption and running the country by law. Can CSR be deployed by government to address these issues, and how?

Despite efforts of the State and Party to manage and channel societal expectations, there is evidence of increasing awareness of and willingness to engage with CSR agendas in Chinese society. There is an increasing public awareness and mobilization around environmental management due to the severe air pollution, and active engagement in social media, which provides a potential new momentum for the CSR development in China. There is also the emergence of a new Chinese working class, mainly the new generation of Chinese migrant workers who have better education and greater awareness of their rights to protection than their forerunners. This emergence has brought more challenges and pressure to Chinese business owners and CSR managers to consider some changes or relationship adjustment both inside (e.g., more space for workers’ participation in enterprise management) and outside (e.g., more space for the integration of migrant workers into local society).

This emergence raises the central question of firm-level role in CSR. There has been a development of “worker committees” being established in thousands of Chinese firms. There is also evidence that Chinese firms are taking a new interest in human capital development. Both of these trends raise major questions for managers and are both likely, if Western experience is any guide, to be a catalyst for further CSR issues to be raised.

Juelin Yin (2017) investigates how the nature of leadership and corporate culture in combination with institutional pressures shape CSR in Chinese firms. Her article finds that corporate culture and specifically values, integrity, and responsibilities the company actively communicates have a significant positive impact on socially responsible practices toward employees, consumers, and communities based on responses from managers from mainly private medium-sized firms. Socially responsible practices toward consumers are further positively related to normative social pressure in the sense that undertaking social responsibility is viewed as a moral obligation. Interestingly, strong government relations are positively associated with CSR toward consumers, but no significance is found with CSR toward employees and communities. The study makes clear that corporate culture and values are critical for understanding CSR in Chinese firms and warrant further attention by scholars and CSR practitioners.

One sector that has been particularly visible in the context of CSR short-comings in China is that of food. A number of food scandals have occurred in China, and these have received intense public attention similar to recent serious food scandals in the United States and Europe. The article of Zuo, Schwartz, and Wu (2017) explores how Chinese food enterprises respond to coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures for CSR. Their findings illustrate the limits to authoritarian CSR as coercive pressure does not significantly induce CSR in the food industry. Similar to the study of Yin (2017) that finds peer imitation pressure to be absent, they also find no significant mimetic pressures toward firms in the food industry. Zuo et al.’s (2017) finding that normative pressures has a positive and significant effect on CSR practices of firms in the food industry is very interesting and is in line with the previous discussion of an increasingly stronger role for civil society regulation of Chinese firms.

China’s role in globalization is no longer only as a supplier of goods for Western retail markets. Chinese MNCs now operate worldwide in manufacturing, resource extraction, and infrastructure development. Whelan and Muthuri (2017) delve deeper into the nature of CSR in SOEs in China and focus specifically on how SOEs in China respond to human rights pressures in Africa. Their article illustrates how CSR within Chinese SOEs is shaped by the dual forces of the party-state and international standards and transnational pressures. They find that human rights are interpreted in a Chinese form of only some human rights and not the full spectrum put forward in international standards. This finding is in line with our discussion of the emergence of a Chinese “authoritarian capitalist” form of CSR.

The concern with normative issues is a long-standing one in CSR China research (Moon & Shen, 2010) and can still be expected given the obvious skepticism about CSR in authoritarian capitalism, particularly from a human rights perspective.

Conclusion

Whether authoritarian capitalism is a stable and propitious platform for more socially responsible, responsive, and accountable business remains to be seen. The former China Premier Zhou Enlai’s 1972 adage that it is “too early to say” what is the long-term impact of the 1968 French student uprising could equally apply here. It is clear, however, that CSR has arrived as an agenda item for international civil society and business, for the Chinese State and Party, and for Chinese business, at the firm and sector levels, at home and abroad.

The skeptical view of state-led CSR could reasonably point to ethical ambiguities in the model, empirical doubts about the practice, as well as conceptual doubts about the “autonomy” of CSR. But these are points of skepticism about CSR more widely. Moreover, they are useful evaluation points to keep CSR scholars and practitioners “honest.” It should not be forgotten that CSR in the West, or at least its predecessors “corporate philanthropy,” “paternalism,” and “stewardship,” also predate mass democracy and welfare-oriented, as well as competition-oriented, market regulation (Carroll et al., 2012). Societal pressure for business responsibility and the growing recognition of social prerequisites of business emerged in parallel with democratization, welfare societies, and market regulation, rather than simply resulting from them. The relationship of CSR development to such system-level changes as cause, effect, correlate, or noncorrelate remains a major research challenge.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The guest editors thank the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility and Nottingham University Business School China who organized a conference on CSR in China in 2011 at the University of Nottingham, Ningbo Campus, China. They also thank Luisa Murphy for her research assistance. Jeremy Moon acknowledges the support of the Villum Foundation.

The article was accepted during the editorship of Duane Windsor.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Peter S. Hofman (PhD, University of Twente, The Netherlands) is associate professor of corporate social responsibility and corporate governance at Nottingham University Business School China and member of the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility, University of Nottingham. He is Head of Department of International Business and Management at Nottingham University Business School China of the University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China. His research interests are in corporate social responsibility, sustainability strategy and governance, corporate governance and innovation, and system innovation and transition toward sustainability. His articles have appeared in journals such as Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Business Strategy and the Environment, Energy Policy, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Journal of Cleaner Production, and Technology Analysis and Strategic Management.

Jeremy Moon is Velux professor of corporate sustainability at the Copenhagen Business School. He was previously founding director of the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility, University of Nottingham. He is coauthor of Corporations and Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and author of the Very Short Introduction to Corporate Social Responsibility (Oxford University Press, 2014). His recent journal publications include L. Vigneau et al. (2015), “How Do Firms Comply With International Sustainability Standards,” Journal of Business Ethics; , “Government Policies for Corporate Social Responsibility in Europe,” Policy and Politics; G. Whelan et al. (2013), “Corporations and Citizenship Arenas in the Age of Social Media,” Journal of Business Ethics; and A. Rasche et al. (2013), “Complete and Partial Organizing for Corporate Social Responsibility,” Journal of Business Ethics.

Bin Wu is a senior research fellow in the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies and senior fellow of the China Policy Institute (CPI), University of Nottingham. He is a founder and convener of the Centre for Chinese Migration Studies (CCMS). He has published many edited volumes in areas of sustainable development, higher education reform, and social justice in China. He is a coeditor of the International Journal of Diasporic Chinese Studies (in Chinese). His articles have been appeared in many international journals, including Agriculture and Human Values, Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and Journal of Contemporary China. He is leading to produce a special issue for the Journal of Chinese Overseas with the theme of the integration of international students from China in host societies (with Professor Stig Thøgersen).

Reviewers for the Special Issue

Andrew Crane

Frank de Bakker

Jeff Frooman

Bryan Husted

Stephen Kobrin

Haiying Lin

Carlos Wing-Hung Lo

Chris Marquis

Dirk Moosmayer

Anders Örtenblad

Bala Ramasamy

Ulf Richter

Edward Romar

Joe Sarkis

May Tan-Mullins

Zhilong Tian

Richard Welford

Thomas Wing Yan Man

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