The Driving Mechanism Of German Automobile Companies’ CSR Activities In China: From A Cross-cultural Perspective

The rapid development of international automobile companies in China not onlysees the economic profits, but also some serious problems, such as environmentalpollution and labor issue. Automobile industry’s Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) has thus been brought to our attention. Among all the international automobilebrands, German automobile brands jumped to No.1in2011. Therefore, the thesischooses the German automobile companies as the research object, and discusses thefactors influence the CSR of German automobile companies in China.The thesis starts with a discussion about culture, CSR and its related concepts, andthen proceeds to elaborate on CSR and CSR driving mechanism in automobileindustry, and the influence of cross culture on different driving mechanisms. Tofurther study German automobile companies’ CSR driving mechanisms in China, andfind out how important each factor is in the driving mechanism, this thesis conductsan empirical study by Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP), and designsquestionnaire to confirm the analysis factors in the FAHP model. Through the study inthis thesis, implications are offered to help Chinese government and internationalautomobile companies to their better CSR activities in China.This thesis consists of five parts. The first part is about the study background,method, purpose, and the structure of this thesis; the second part reviews literaturesand theories about culture CSR, and CSR driving mechanism in automobile industry.The third part narrows its discussion on German and Chinese CSR driving factors inthe context of their culture differences. The fourth part adopts an FAHP method toanalyze the data collected. Finally comes the fifth part describing some findings andproviding some implications derived from this study.