Political Connection And Social Responsibility Information Disclosure

In recent years, with the development of economy and the continuous improvement of people’s living standards, to implement the scientific concept of development, to build a harmonious society and to realize the harmony and unity of economy, society and environment, become the theme of the times. Enterprise is no longer only the pursuit of maximizing shareholder’s interests, but also need to consider the interests of other stakeholders, finally to realize the sustainable development of the whole society. Therefore, to undertake the social responsibility and the disclosure of relevant information, for the development of domestic and foreign enterprises today, become a request which can’t be ignored.In the1970s, Britain, France, Germany and other countries began to require companies to publish "social bulletin" and foreign disclosure level has been more leading up to now. Compared to foreign countries, corporate social responsibility information disclosure in our country is relatively late. In2000, Petro China Company Limited kicked off our social responsibility information disclosure, the disclosure of the first social responsibility report, entitled "2000HSE report". In2006, State Grid Corporation of china disclosed the first state-owned enterprise’s report, called "social responsibility report". From then on, some enterprises also have followed its pace. The event also attracted wide attention from all sectors of society, and the government also promulgated a series of policies and guidelines. In September2006, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange issued the "Shenzhen Stock Exchange Listed Corporate Social Responsibility guidelines". In January2008, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council issued the "Guidelines to the State-owned Enterprises Directly under the Central Government on Fulfilling Corporate Social Responsibilities". Then in March and May of the same year, the Fujian Securities Regulatory Bureau and the Shanghai Stock Exchange issued the "Fujian listed companies, securities and futures business institutions, securities and futures services guidelines on social responsibility" and "Shanghai Stock Exchange listed companies’ environmental information disclosure Guidelines". In the beginning, China’s enterprises are voluntary information disclosure of social responsibility and the government is not mandatory. But later because of all walks of life to pay more and more attention to issues related to corporate social responsibility and a few of companies to voluntarily disclose, it can’t meet the public needs. In December2008, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and the Shanghai Stock Exchange require "Shenzhen100Index" constituent stocks,"corporate governance index" plate, finance and at the same time domestic and overseas listed companies to disclose social responsibility report. As of April30,2013, a total of China’s A-share listed companies disclosed658copies of various social responsibility reports, including social responsibility reports, sustainable development report, environmental reporting, corporate citizenship announcement, All of which are disclosed in the independent report form. Compared with the592different social responsibility reports in2012, reports in2013have increased by11.15percentage points. It shows awareness of corporate social responsibility in the growing and more and more attention to the social responsibility information disclosure.The study abroad on social responsibility information disclosure is more mature, which is mainly studied from internal and external aspects, but our country started relatively late. The existing literature shows that the main influence factors of social responsibility information disclosure are studied from the company’s characteristics, corporate governance, and external pressure. And most of the existing literature is to learn from foreign research, with little regard to the political, economic and cultural background of China and developed countries having a big difference, so we should be combined with China’s specific national conditions and system background to study social responsibility information disclosure.China is in a period of economic transition and the government and the enterprise is not completely separated. The government still holds the important resources for the survival and development of enterprises, and political connection as an informal alternative mechanism, is an effective way for enterprises to communicate with the government. Especially in areas of strong government intervention, companies rely on this "relationship" can get many benefits from the government, and even affect the government’s decision. However, the enterprise in order to maintain and enhance this "relationship" will pay a certain cost and price. The government calls on enterprises to actively fulfill their social responsibility and social responsibility information disclosure. In response to the government’s call, politically connected companies will actively disclose relevant information. The purpose of this paper is to investigate and analyze political connection and social responsibility information disclosure. Whether the existence of political connection will affect the level of social responsibility information disclosure, to join the government intervention factors, the impact of what it is. Whether different corporate nature will produce different effects is a further consideration. This study provides a theoretical support for the social responsibility information disclosure and political connection.In this paper, the main contents are as follows:Chapter1IntroductionThis chapter mainly elaborates the research background, research purpose and significance, research ideas and research methods, and finally discusses the innovation points of this paper.Chapter2Literature ReviewThe chapter on political connection and social responsibility information disclosure of related research at home and abroad were reviewed. Firstly, the study of political connection is mainly summarized from the motivation of political connection and political connection on the enterprise. Secondly, the study of social responsibility information disclosure is mainly summarized from the influencing factors and the economic consequences. Thirdly, the political connection and social responsibility information disclosure of the relevant literature is carried on the simple review. On this basis, to be summarized comments, this paper puts forward the point of this study.Chapter3Theoretical AnalysisThis chapter briefly introduces the concepts of political association, social responsibility and social responsibility information disclosure, and puts forward the theoretical basis of this study, including the system background theory, resource dependency theory, stakeholder theory and the theory of organizational legitimacy, which lay the theoretical foundation for the empirical analysis. Chapter4Empirical Study DesignThis paper is based on the voluntary disclosure of social responsibility report (including environmental reports, sustainable development reports and corporate citizenship bulletin) of the listed companies as research samples and uses Rankins CSR Ratings data to measure the level of social responsibility information disclosure. This paper studies the influence of political connection on social responsibility information disclosure, and whether this impact will be different because of the nature of property right. To join the government intervention factors to study the effect of political connection on the social responsibility information disclosure, whether there will be different because of the influence of the state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises. Finally, the variables used are briefly stated and the models are constructed in this paper.Chapter5Empirical Results and AnalysisThis chapter makes the empirical test based on the previous chapter. On the one hand, political connection of enterprises have a higher level of social responsibility information disclosure, and because of the nature of different enterprises, the impact is also different. The political connection in state-owned enterprises has little effect on the level of social responsibility information disclosure, but the non-state-owned enterprises have a positive effect. On the other hand, further consideration the government intervention factors, this paper find that political connection have a positive effect on the level of social responsibility information disclosure in areas where government intervention is serious, and for the state-owned enterprises the impact is not significant, but for non-state enterprises significantly positive correlation.Chapter6Conclusions, Recommendations and Directions for ImprovementThis chapter mainly summarizes the conclusions of the study, puts forward related recommendations and puts forward further directions for improvement.The main contributions of this paper are as follows:(1)First of all, this paper is based on the voluntary disclosure of social responsibility report (including environmental reports, sustainable development report and corporate citizenship bulletin) as research samples and uses Rankins CSR Ratings data to measure the level of social responsibility information disclosure, which greatly reduce the workload of data collection. Secondly, this paper choose voluntary disclosure not all disclosure reports, because it is more study of political motivation behind it and more representative, can exclude the interference factors and comply with the direction of research.(2)Most of the previous scholars study respectively the political connection and social responsibility information disclosure, and few scholars’research with both of them combined. Besides, the study of political connection is mainly for private enterprises and does not take into account the nature of the enterprise, which may produce different results. This paper makes research on the two and is divided into state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises to test hypotheses.it is not quite the same conclusion with previous scholars.The deficiencies of this paper are as follows:(1)This paper uses Rankins CSR Ratings data to measure the level of social responsibility information disclosure which is rarely used at present, so it remains to be seen comparability and accuracy of the data. In the descriptive statistics, due to the limited ability and information, this article doesn’t describe the social responsibility information disclosure in detail.(2)This paper selects the chairman or general manager whether the former or current government, deputies or CPPCC members and the army to set up the dummy variables to measure the political connection, and doesn’t consider other factors, such as political connection type and hidden relationships.(3)This paper selects the smaller sample size and sample interval, which may have effects on the study conclusion.