| Corporate social responsibility (hereafter CSR for short) would greatly improve the quality of labor relations and increase social welfare. It also assists the enhancements of the co-development of political and social civilization. However, extant literature exclusively builds upon management and economic perspective to investigate the rational and economic antecedents of CSR, whereas the theoretical lenses of Marx’s political economy, economic ethics and sociology has been rarely employed. In this consideration, based on the economic ethic perspective and the institutional theory, this research investigates the CSR practices of the listed companies in Shaanxi province. By specifying the political, social and economic institutional environments in Shaanxi province, this research theoretically identifies the institutional influences that stem from the institutional environment upon the listed companies in Shaanxi, and empirically examines the specific influences that each institutional force sheds upon the listed companies. Specifically, this research has conducted the following investigations. First, analysis the construct connotation of CSR based on the combined theoretical perspectives of economic ethics and CSR research. Second, based on the detailed analysis of institutional theory, this research identifies the categories, components, and the respected influences of the provincial institutional elements. Third, based on the discussion of the heterogeneous provincial institutions and the institutional dependencies of CSR practices, this research outlines the institutional circumstances and characteristics of Shaanxi province, and indicates the potential challenges that the listed companies of Shaanxi province have when they conduct their CSR practices. Fourth, by collecting the Marketization Index data and the CSR practice reports of the listed companies, this research empirically analysis the characteristics and critical issues of the institutional conditions in Shaanxi province, and accordingly the conditions, problems and boundary dependencies of CSR practices of the listed companies in Shaanxi province. Fifth, based on the above mentioned theoretical discussion and empirical examination, this research offer suggestions for the improvements of the CSR practices of the listed companies in Shaanxi province from the firm and country level in the construction of the political, social and economic institutions.In this way, this paper would make the following theoretical and empirical contributions. Theoretically, the thesis identifies the theoretical root of firms’CSR practices in the economic ethic theory, which would help firms to formulate their systematic understandings of the CSR practices and their business ethics. In addition, the discussion around the institutional influences in the provincial level would help firms’formulation of their business ethic by outlining the inner connections between the organizational level ethical awareness and the macro level institutional influences, which contributes to the integration of the institutional theory and business ethic perspective. Practically, this thesis selects Shaanxi province, the place where the environmental and economic issues have long been recognized, as the research background, and aim to investigate the CSR practices of the listed companies, which is the leader and bench-mark of business ethic and CSR practices. In this way, this thesis would extend our understandings of the institutional conditions of Shaanxi province, including its political, social and economic institutions, and offer more context-specific knowledge regards firms’CSR practices. Therefore, this thesis would have considerable theoretical and practical implications for the improvements of government regulation, business ethics, and social moral system. |
