Research On The Corporate Social Responsibility Standards System Of Multinational Corporations In China

Ever since 1990s, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been an issue that attracts the attention from enterprises, academia, governments and non-governmental organizations. Multinational Corporations (MNCs) as enterprises operated across cultures and regions, their CSR actions will affect in even a wider scope, thus cause more attention. Before finally propose the new CSR Standards System for MNCs, the author first categorize the current research on CSR for MNCs home and abroad. Generally speaking, currently the number of researches on the CSR issues of MNCs has been increasing. Internationally, researchers mainly focus on using institutional structure difference and stakeholder theories to explain the difference in MNCs'CSR practices in the home countries and host countries, some empirical studies have been carried out as well. While as the FDI's increase in both scale and scope in China, there are also more researches on MNCs'CSR in China as well, but generally speaking the number is not so big, some empirical studies have been done, but mainly based on single cases or focused on descriptive study. Nowadays, the researches in China on MNCs'CSR are still mainly about the introduction of the CSR standards, especially the international standards, it is lack of the theoretical explanation on the CSR practices of MNCs in China, for the phenomenon of'double standards'adopted by MNCs and the'inconsistency'of MNCs'CSR practice in home countries and host countries, almost no explanation is provided, let alone presenting a new standards system can be used to direct MNCs'CSR practice in China.This thesis starts from the research on the currently available CSR standards for MNCs by using content analysis and comparative analysis and identify the motives and applicability of these standards as well as conclude that the CSR standards system in developed countries were generally restricted by their economic development, institutional environment, key issues in industry, claims of stakeholders. The standards system reflects the particular country's timeline and characteristics as well as its limitations.MNCs in China is in an environment which characterized as lower economic development, institutional differences, stakeholder differences, and culture differences, thus their selection of CSR practices will be'inconsistent'with the home countries. By adopting the normative research methodology and empirical study, as well as using the institutional theory, stakeholder theory, integrative social contract theory and other theories in statistics and management theories, for the first time the thesis explores the question of CSR standards system for MNCs in China. The main research findings are as the follows:(1). Based on the currently widely accepted CSR standard, the author classified them according to their set-up motive, applicability, and CSR dimensions, and identified that most of the CSR standards accepted in the international world were initiated due to some specific issues in the process of corporations in the developed world, there are some universality, but also lack of appropriateness.(2) The author reclassified the available CSR standard for MNC and they are the international standards, home country standards, and host country standards, to use the new classification to clearly indicate the limitations and problems with the current standards.(3) By adopting institutional theory, stakeholder theory and integrative social contract theory, the author explained the issues of the CSR of MNCs in host developing countries and concluded that the different institutional conditions, economic development stage and stakeholder differences constrain the selection of standards as well as the implementation of CSR actions for MNCs.(4) Doing the empirical study and present the descriptive study on the stakeholders'expectations in China for MNCs in their CSR actions and practices. 36 different CSR actions are identified and classified into different dimensions. Using the method of content analysis to re-exam the literature on CSR in western countries and in accordance with the CSR standards, the author identified the dimensions of CSR in western countries.(5) By comparing the different dimensions in western literature and Chinese expectation, the author concluded on the specific dimensions for MNCs in China and analyzed the reasons for these differences.(6) The author sets up a new MNCs'CSR standards system which both reflects the global strategic needs of MNCs as well as the local concerns in CSR practice. In the new CSR standard system, it includes the CSR issues that need to be globally attended, and CSR issues that need to be locally oriented. It also indicates clearly for different type of CSR actions what levels of standard need to be adopted. This way of classification can very well represent the integration and divergence of CSR practices of MNCs in host developing countries, thus will provide more guidance for MNCs in China.(7) The author also used the empirical study to test the new CSR standards system and verify its reliability and validity.