Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting in China: Symbol or Substance?

By Christopher Marquis, Cuili Qian. Organ. Sci., 2011

1,576 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This study focuses on how and why firms strategically respond to government signals on appropriate corporate activity. We integrate institutional theory with research on corporate political strategy to develop a political dependence model that explains (a) how different types of dependency on the government lead firms to issue corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports and (b) how the risk of governmental monitoring affects the extent to which CSR reports are symbolic or substantive. First, we examine how firm characteristics reflecting dependence on the government—including private versus state ownership, executives serving on political councils, political legacy, and financial resources—affect the likelihood of firms issuing CSR reports. Second, we focus on the symbolic nature of CSR reporting and how variance in the risk of government monitoring through channels such as bureaucratic embeddedness and regional government institutional development influences the extent to which CSR communications are symbolically decoupled from substantive CSR activities. Our database includes all CSR reports issued by the approximately 1,600 publicly listed Chinese firms between 2006 and 2009. Our hypotheses are generally supported. The political perspective we develop contributes to organizational theory by showing that (a) government signaling is an important mechanism of political influence, (b) different types of dependency on the government expose firms to different types of legitimacy pressure, and (c) firms face a decoupling risk that makes them more likely to enact substantive CSR actions in situations in which they are likely to be monitored.

Subfields: Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/10978be91e9d1406cc4af8bfc41b048c6eaa78ca

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Citations in the corpus

Do foreign institutional investors drive corporate social responsibility? Evidence from listed firms in China (2020, background): “…are obtained from the RKS rating system,7 which details the contents of CSR-related activities and fully covers Chinese listed firms issuing CSR or sustainability reports (Elmagrhi et al., 2019; Lau, Lu, & Liang, 2016; Luo, Wang, & Zhang, 2017; Marquis & Qian, 2014; McGuinness et al., 2017).”
Corporate social responsibility in emerging market economies: Determinants, consequences, and future research directions (2020, background): “Marquis and Qian (2014) find that dependency on the government and risk of governmental monitoring also influence CSR reporting in China.”
Corporate Board and Corporate Social Responsibility Assurance: Evidence from China (2016, neutral): “Moreover, external legitimacy pressures, such as satisfying customers and suppliers’ requests and obtaining public recognition, can influence firm-level CSR practices to comply with other international practices (Marquis and Qian 2014).”
Corporate Social Responsibility, Institutional Environments, and Tax Avoidance: Evidence from a Subnational Comparison in China (2017, methodology): “…2013), firms are more dependent on political and social networks to conduct business (Hung, Wong, & Zhang, 2015), professionalism in the workplace is less adequate (Fan et al., 2011), and the social and economic costs of noncompliance with laws and norms are low (Chen, 2005; Marquis & Qian, 2013).”
How Does Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility Matter in a Dysfunctional Institutional Environment? Evidence from China (2015, neutral): “For example, before 2006, even firms with a high level of ECSR did not report their ECSR information because the Chinese governments had not yet issued formal guidelines for doing so (Marquis and Qian 2014).”
Overcoming Institutional Voids: A Reputation-Based View of Long Run Survival (2017, background): “…body of work has argued that dominant incumbents can gain competitive advantage through nonmarket actions that can mitigate political hazards, including lobbying (Choi, Jia, and Lu, 2014), stakeholder engagement (Henisz et al. , 2014), and corporate social responsibility (Marquis and Qian, 2013).”
The Impact of Green Lending on Credit Risk in China (2018, background): “Therefore, Chinese banks take CSR seriously [82], and increase their green lending.”
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility of Multinational Companies Subsidiaries in Emerging Markets: Evidence from China (2016, background): “…more or less independent of CSR development (Gond et al., 2011), in an emerging market such as China, it is considered as an important promoter and collaborator on CSR strategy design and implementation in the eyes of business organizations, MNCs included (Marquis and Qian, 2014; Zhao, 2012).”
The Role of Normative CSR‐Promoting Institutions in Stimulating CSR Disclosures in Developing Countries (2018, background): “While sovereign governments have influenced ‘CSR disclosure’ in a number of countries including France (Knudsen et al., 2015) and China (Marquis & Qian, 2014), CSR disclosure remains a largely unregulated phenomenon in most countries (Deegan & Unerman, 2011).”
Theories of the (state-owned) firm (2016, background): “…economic with the social and natural environmental dimensions, determining how SOEs can effectively balance the often conflicting demands from these three dimensions will be a fascinating new ground for CSR research (Marquis & Qian, 2014; McWilliams & Siegel, 2000; Su, Peng, Tan, & Cheung, 2016).”
Corporate Social Responsibility Under Authoritarian Capitalism: Dynamics and Prospects of State-Led and Society-Driven CSR (2017, background): “In the most comprehensive study to date on CSR reporting by Chinese firms, Marquis and Qian (2014) found that “factors related to the firms exposure to domestic government” (p. 140) provide an explanation for the decision of firms to issue CSR reports, while increased likelihood of monitoring…”
Environmental policy, environmental performance, and financial distress in China: Do top management team characteristics matter? (2018, methodology): “The positive impact of female CEOs in reducing the firm’s information and operational risk was also found by Luo et al. (2017a).”