The Relationship Among External Pressures, Ethical Leadership And Corporate Social Responsibility

In recent years, there are so few managing subjects as corporate social responsibility causethe attentions of academic researchers and enterprise executives with food safety problemsrecurring, morality and environmental issues deteriorating. These social problems make more andmore governments and enterprises pay attention to social responsibility problems, enterprises aresubject to more and more rigorous supervision restraint and social pressure, external pressuresurge enterprises to choose social responsibility practices, such as the initiative of charitabledonations, reduce environmental pollution and protect the interests of employees, and enterpriseshave achieved good social benefits; passive choice of some enterprises may cause a great waste ofresources and the cost. Though different businesses have different practices, corporate socialresponsibility has been vexing many executives and academic researchers.This study attempts to analyze the enterprise’s perception of external pressure on the internalmechanism and the effect mechanism of corporate social responsibility, and to explore the ethicalleadership as a mediator, as well as the moderating role of executives’ moral motivation andmanagerial discretion from the perspectives of strategic management and the external pressuresfaced by enterprises. To be specific, the paper will explore the following four aspects. Firstly,whether the social responsibilities of enterprises are subject to the perceptive external pressuresand what these pressures have significant implications for enterprise social responsibility.Secondly, what are the enterprises’ internal reacting processes under the influence of externalpressures and what is the inherent mechanism of enterprise social responsibilities. Thirdly, howethical leadership effects the enterprise social responsibilities and its role between the externalpressures and these responsibilities. Finally, whether the effect process of social responsibilitiesby external pressures and by executives’ moral motivation and autonomy are subject to theinfluence of other factors. All in all, the paper attempts to construct an overall model researchingthe influence of external pressures on enterprise social responsibilities.Based on the prior case studies, constructive interviews, theoretical analysis and modelconstruction, the paper analyzes the perceptive external pressures and the logical relationshipsbetween ethical leadership and corporate social responsibility. The paper makes the conclusionthat two kinds of pressures are included in enterprise external pressures, that is, the stakeholdersand the systematic pressures, both of which have a positive influence on corporate social responsibility. Furthermore, ethical leadership acts as the mediator between enterprise externalpressures and social responsibilities. Thus, an assumption has been made. Next, based on thefindings from the theories of stakeholders, systems, morality and ethnics, the paper establishes aregulated mediator model and proposes such an internal effect mechanism as externalpressures-the inherent role of ethical leadership-enterprise social responsibilities, with the methodof literature study, theoretical derivation and assuming deduction, etc.. What’s more, the studyreported in this paper reports the derivation process, questionnaire design, their distribution andrecycling process, choice of scales, as well as its key research methods. Statistical methods suchas regression analysis, and Bootstrap analysis, have been used to analyze286pieces sample dataand to conduct normative empirical tests to14hypotheses. At last, this paper discusses andanalyzes the main conclusions, summarizing the theoretical significance and practicalmanagement implications of the study. The limitations of this study and the future researchdirection of enterprise social responsibilities have been analyzed elaborately as well in this paper.This paper comes to the following conclusions through theoretical and empirical tests. First,both the perceptive stakeholders and systematic pressures have a significant and positive impacton ethical leadership and enterprise social responsibilities. Second, ethical leadership are theinternal motivated factors that influence enterprises. Thus they have a positive impact on thesocial responsibilities of enterprises. Third, ethical leadership acts as the mediator between theexternal pressures and the the social responsibilities of enterprises. Fourth, the executives’ moralmotivations plays a positive and regulative part in the relationships between the external pressuresand the the social responsibilities of enterprises. Managerial discretion plays a positive andregulative part in the relationships between ethical leadership and the the social responsibilities ofenterprises. Fifth, the study model of external pressures-ethical leadership-enterprise socialresponsibilities is established and the regulated mediator effect model are further provedsustainable.This paper improves the related enterprise social responsibilities research and built such astudy framework as the enterprises’ perceptive external pressure influencing the socialresponsibilities. Some further studies have been realized. First, this paper expands some relatedstudies on social responsibilities of enterprises. Compared with the previous studies which tend tofocus on how corporate social responsibility influences the results of enterprises or the singlerelationship between the systematic pressures and the social responsibilities of enterprises, thispaper analyses the effect process and influential mechanism of corporate social responsibilityamong stakeholders pressures, systematic pressures, ethical leadership from the perspective ofeconomy, system and morality. Thus the stakeholder theory and the findings of enterprise socialresponsibilities are enriched, which provides the study of corporate social responsibility with a new exploring perspective and theoretical model. Second, this paper expands some related studieson ethical leaders. By further analyzing the preconditions of ethical leadership, the socialresponsibilities policy of enterprises is the result of external pressures, internal ethical leadershipand ultimately responsibility achievement, which makes up for the deficiency of the past study onethical leadership. Finally, a theoretical model of external pressures-ethical leadership-corporate social responsibility is established, which provides a new perspective for enterprisesocial responsibility studies. In particular, the introduction of regulating executives’moral motivesand managerial discretion specify the effect mechanism of external pressures to corporate socialresponsibility and provide some references and helps for deepening the study on the antecedentfactors of corporate social responsibility and the inner operating path. Finally, this paper furtherdiscusses the practical significance of the research with enterprise managers alleviate the externalpressure and formulate of corporate social responsibility strategy.