Research On Corporate Social Responsibility In The Insurance Industry

The traditional business philosophy of profit maximization is criticized extensively, as corporate social responsibility (CSR) has increasingly aroused wide concern. Under the background of global research and practice on CSR, relevant research and practice activities have also developed in our country in recent years. However, industrial special research has been still limited at the present time. Commercial insurance, as a financial industry which plays an important role for social management, has highlighted its significance of CSR research.The dissertation analyzes existing domestic and international theories on CSR, elaborates on the objective necessity of insurance company taking social responsibility as a special industry, and demonstrates social responsibility connotation on commercial insurance firstly. The dissertation analyzes the theoretical basis of insurance company taking social responsibility from the perspective of economics and management respectively, and discusses the case concerning CSR practice in domestic and international insurance companies secondly. Then based on questionnaire research, this dissertation constructs a CSR evaluating indicator system via an empirical analysis method, and further proposes some constructive suggestions in order to speed up CSR development in the insurance industry in our country.Main contents of this dissertation and basic conclusions are as follows:Chapter one introduce CSR theoretical research process, propose that CSR requires further perfection both theoretically and practically, although it has been realized widely. CSR correlates closely to business ethics, corporation operation strategy, and stakeholders.Chapter two elaborates on internal social features of commercial insurance, and considers that insurance company, as a commercial insurance operation vehicle, will inevitably need to take CSR. Based on international CSR research philosophy, the connotation on commercial insurance is defined in this chapter.Insurance characteristic reflects its compensation function and social interdependent relationship, which indicates that insurance coming from the society should contribute to the society. The two basic functions of insurance, namely economic compensation and diversification of risk, embodies its social nature, and its social management function further highlights its internal social nature. Insurance company, which organizes insurance economic activities and operates insurance business, should inherit this kind of insurance natures and functions, therefore, as the real main body of insurance natures and functions, insurance company has to play an important social role. The CSR research on insurance company is limited. However, the existing researchers advocate that insurance company developing CSR activities can help to promote social development, and believe that it is via professional risk management that insurance company can fulfill CSR better. The dissertation defines insurance company’s CSR as four parts:economic responsibility, legal responsibility, ethical responsibility, and philanthropic responsibility.From the perspectives of externality, bounded rationality, social capital theory, the transaction cost theory, and the social contract theory, Chapter three focuses on economic analysis concerning insurance company taking social responsibility.The positive externalities of insurance company is concentrated expression of the following respects:insurance product design meeting the social demands, developing socially responsible investment, adopting efficient risk management technology, and so on. Insurance company fulfilling social responsibility is affected by such factors as company executives’quality and awareness, uncertain social responsibility evaluating indicator system, and decision maker’s considered preference, etc. However, an effective system can extend insurance company’s bounded rationality. Based on considering social contract, insurance company should take social responsibility. In addition, insurance company taking charge of its stakeholders will help to obtain social capital, so transaction costs in business process can be reduced to some extent, for those insurance companies taking social responsibility.Chapter four presents a management analysis on insurance company taking social responsibility, from the perspective of corporate culture, human resource management, marketing, and corporate lifecycles.CSR and corporate culture interact, and both of them display a typical overflowing informative transmission effect. In insurance company, human resource management design should focus on the following aspects:favorable working conditions, wholesome recruitment policy, full training opportunity, perfect performance management, attractive compensation benefit policy, and personalized employee assistant program. The process and result of insurance company taking social responsibility can become a kind of social marketing tool, helps to bring the company direct or potential economic benefits. Insurance company’s social responsibilities differ a lot with lifecycles. On the basis of case analysis, Chapter five introduces CSR practices in domestic and foreign companies and makes a contract, and further represents the revelation for the Chinese companies.Based on exploring large insurance enterprise’s practice activities in the developed countries, a conclusion can be drawn that, foreign insurance companies have the courage to take social responsibility universally. For instance, their insurance products satisfying social differentiation demands, special social responsibility committee being established, employees being given prominent attention, focusing on environmental protection issues, emphasizing social responsibility investment, etc. These practice activities are worth using for reference for the Chinese companies.Chapter six discusses the motivations of domestic insurance company’s taking CSR in detail and analyzes the existing issues and causes. Finally, in this chapter a CSR evaluating indicator system is constructed for domestic insurance companies, based on questionnaire and data analysis.The motivations of the domestic insurance company’s taking CSR come from social need, business ethics, and corporate internal need. Because of the following reasons, such as non-perfectly competitive market, information asymmetry, lack of effective intellectual property protection system, inadequate supervision and restriction mechanism, extensive corporate management and backwardness of risk management technology, etc. there exist a lot of deficiencies on CSR in the Chinese insurance companies generally. At present, in addition to a shortage of catastrophe insurance and low level of credit standing in insurance company, insurance clause is rather obscure and hard to understand, and moreover, insurance product cannot meet the market need to a high extent. Based on questionnaire, a conclusion can be drawn that, stakeholders of insurance company believe insurance company should take more social responsibility, and doing so can produce positive effects for the company. Aiming at the industry feature, a CSR evaluating indicator system, which is classified by four parts:employee rights, stakeholder rights, social responsibility management, and charity and social welfare, is constructed for the Chinese insurance company in this chapter.Based on the analysis above, Chapter seven brings forward the conclusion and suggestion, form the perspectives of micro level, median level and macro level.