Research On Contemporary China’s Corporate Social Responsibility

With the deepening of globalization, corporate social responsibility became ahot issue of common concern around the world. The bad performance status ofcorporate social responsibilities in contemporary China sparks concern in theoreticaland practical circles about the corporate social responsibility issue in our country.How to define and solve the problem with modernity and Chineseness inperformance of corporate social responsibility has becomes a common problem intheoretical and practical circles. The theme of this paper is to clear the connotation ofthe corporate social responsibility in contemporary China and try to construct theChinese characteristic system of corporate social responsibility. Under this theme,from the realistic background and special national conditions in contemporary China,on the basis of defining the connotation of corporate social responsibility, this paperreviews the legitimacy of corporate social responsibility in contemporary China inthe perspective of relational contract theory, constructs the “Five in One” corporatesocial responsibility system with Chinese characteristics and designs the concreteimplementation model and evaluation index. At last, this paper’s foothold finallycomes back to China. In the framework of corporate social responsibility system incontemporary China, under the guidance of practical experience of Russia’scorporate social responsibility, this paper explore the possible path of implementingcorporate social responsibility in contemporary China with the sample of“public-private partnership” mode, in order to enrich and develop corporate socialresponsibility theory in contemporary China and advance its better implementationin the new period of China. Besides the introduction and conclusion, the body of this paper is divided intofive chapters.The first chapter is the introduction of corporate social responsibility issues incontemporary China. As origin of the problem, this chapter analyzes the backgroundof corporate social responsibility problems in our country on the base of the reality,and then focus on the status quo of performing corporate social responsibility in ourcountry, reveals the phenomenon of bad performance of corporate socialresponsibility in product quality, protection of employees’ rights and interests,environmental protection and charitable public welfare undertakings by “San Lumilk” event and “Foxconn jump gate” event and other typical cases. Finally, thischapter will further rethink the lack of corporate social responsibility in our countryfrom the aspects of enterprise, government and society, and boil these reasons downto two questions, the first question is lack of clear defining corporate socialresponsibilities’ specific connotation in contemporary China; the second question islack of theory system of corporate social responsibility with Chinese characteristicsand the implementation mechanism.The second chapter is the connotation of corporate social responsibility incontemporary China. In response to the crux summarized in the first chapter, thischapter take the generalized definition of corporate social responsibility, clarifiessome misunderstanding about the corporate social responsibility in contemporaryChina, sums up the main feature of corporate social responsibility in contemporaryChina by combining the development stage and the constituent elements of ourcountries’ corporate social responsibility, highlights the attention and interpretationto China’s unique problems. To be specific, this chapter interprets the general senseof corporate social responsibility from tripartite face such as the nature of theconcept, semantic analysis and property interpretation and points out that corporatesocial responsibility refers to the corporate shall bear the responsibility of increasingstakeholder’s interests and social public interests besides undertake liability forshareholders for managing in accordance with the law and creating profits. This chapter clears the meaning of three core words such as “enterprise”,“social” and“responsibility” and induces the uniform properties of legal obligation and moralobligation of corporate social responsibility. Secondly, this chapter clarify themisunderstanding in the contemporary China such as corporate social responsibilityis not equal to charity, corporate social responsibility is different from “corporate forsocial” as well as the bearing of corporate social responsibility has nothing to dowith the corporate’s development stage, etc. Finally, this chapter summarizes thecharacteristics of corporate social responsibility on the mainline of “contemporaryChinese”, and points out the main characteristics of our countries’ corporate socialresponsibility such as the diversity of obligation subject, the universality of theobligation object and the openness of the content, etc.The third chapter is legitimacy of corporate social responsibility incontemporary China. This chapter takes the relational contract theory as the basis ofcorporate social responsibility legitimacy foundation in contemporary China, andputs forward its guiding significance to the construction of corporate socialresponsibility in our country. Firstly, on the basis of defining the connotation of thelegitimacy of corporate social responsibility, this chapter reflects on western existingcorporate social responsibility theory such as the Social interest theory, stakeholdertheory, corporate citizenship theory, and points out its plights and deficiencies ininterpreting the legitimacy of China’s corporate social responsibility. Secondly, byintroducing the relational contract theory, this chapter demonstrates the feasibility ofrelational contract theory in demonstrating corporate social responsibility in Chinafrom precondition and intrinsic properties, focus on the internal fitness and strongexplanatory power of relational contract theory from the methodology of “essencedoctrine”, the core concept of “communication and cooperation” and theimplementing mechanism of “benefit sharing”. Finally, this chapter analyzes therelational contract theories’ guidance significance of our countries’ corporate socialresponsibility construction from relational contract theory is helpful to reflect thedialectical unity of economic value and social value, actualize the mutual adjustment of internal standard and external standard and a harmonious coexistence of corporatedevelopment and social system.The fourth chapter is the construction of corporate social responsibility systemin contemporary China. This chapter is the resolution to crux summarized in the firstchapter. This chapter discusses corporate social responsibility system incontemporary China according to the logic of the “establishment of system”,“concrete structure” and “practical application” which is the core and focus of thispaper. Firstly, in the part of “establishment of system”, this paper points out thedefects of “Concentric circles” responsibility system and “hierarchy” responsibilitysystem, puts forward the concept of “five in one” corporate social responsibilitysystem in contemporary China which connect up the aim of modernizationconstruction in new period and argues the advantages of“five in one” corporatesocial responsibility in carrying out the “five in one” overall layout of modernizationconstruction in the new period, embodying the government dominant in theimplementation of corporate social responsibility and guaranteeing the inclusivenessof scope definition of corporate social responsibility. Secondly, this chapterelaborates the concrete structure of our countries’ corporate social responsibilitysystem from social economic responsibility, social political responsibility, socialcultural responsibility, social constructing responsibility and social ecologicalresponsibility and expounds its solid content connecting multivariate body type inour country such as state-owned corporate and private corporate. Finally, from thekernel of the relational contract theory, this chapter designs the application modeland evaluation index of corporate social responsibility system in contemporaryChina for providing a practical reference to the implementation of corporate socialresponsibility system with Chinese characteristics.The fifth chapter is the realization mechanism of corporate social responsibilityin contemporary China. As the foothold of the paper, this chapter discusses therealization mechanism of corporate social responsibility in contemporary China fromthree levels, such as experience of implementing corporate social responsibility in transition countries, strategy choice of implementing corporate social responsibilityin china and the practice model of implementing corporate social responsibility by“public-private partnership” mode. Firstly, this chapter examines the particularity ofcorporate social responsibility implementation in transition countries, sums up themain experiences of Russian corporate in fulfilling social responsibility whichadhering to the “essence doctrine” subject orientation, taking government incentivesof “communication and cooperation” and selecting the implementation model of“benefit sharing”. Secondly, on the basis of Russian experience, this chapter refinesthe guiding function of the relational contract theory in choosing the implementationstrategy of our countries’ corporate social responsibility. Finally, this chapterdiscusses the feasibility and implementation suggestions of introducing“public-private partnership” model as the implementing sample of corporate socialresponsibility in our country for in order to optimize the implementation mechanismof corporate social responsibility in our country.The above five chapters outline the basic framework of corporate socialresponsibility research in contemporary China, embodies the combination ofontology, axiology and practicality of contemporary China’s corporate socialresponsibility theory. This paper takes open clue and latent clue as two basic clues.The open clue of this paper is the “contemporary China”. In introducing thecorporate social responsibility issues, defining its connotation and legitimacyfoundation and discussing the system construction and its implementationmechanism of corporate social responsibility with Chinese characteristics, the clueemphasizes the “Chinese problem”,“Chinese style” and “Chinese standards” inChina for realizing the “theory confidence”,“road confidence” and “institutionconfidence” in construction of corporate social responsibility system with Chinesecharacteristics. The latent clue of this paper is the relational contract theory. Guidedby this clue, this paper stands on the position of “essence doctrine” methodology,offers a dynamic and resilient theory framework of corporate social responsibilityresearch in contemporary China starting from the view of “contextual theory”, taking the relational contract theory as the justification of corporate social responsibilityand the and theory kernel of application model of corporate social responsibilitysystem in contemporary China. All in all, two clues run through the paper whichrealized the ideal combination of theory and practice of corporate socialresponsibility in contemporary China.