中文4490字
本科毕业论文（设计）
外文翻译
外文题目Corporate Social Responsibility, OwnershipStructure,
and Political Interference: Evidence from China 外文出处《Journal of Business Ethics》2010（96）：P631-645 外文作者Wenjing Li Ran Zhang
原文：
Corporate Social Responsibility, Ownership Structure, and Political Interference: Evidence from China Introduction
In recent years, there has been growing awareness of the role of corporations in society in an international setting. Among the unresolved issues that deserve attention, Aguilera et al. (2007, p. 837) postulate that an important question in corporate social responsibility (CSR) requiring further attention is ‘‘what catalyzes organizations to engage in increasingly robust CSR initiatives.’’ Prior research studies (C
happle and Moon, 2005; Deniz-Deniz and Garcia-Falcon, 2002; Graves and Waddock, 1994; Johnson and Greening, 1999; Muller and Kolk, 2010; Roberts, 1992; Stanwick and Stanwick, 1998; Zu and Song, 2009) document a link among CSR and firm size, profitability, corporate governance, leverage, employees, industry, and environmental pressures, e.g., shareholder demands, regulation, or media pressure. Among those studies, Graves and Waddock (1994) and Johnson and Greening (1999) document a relationship between firm ownership structure and CSR. Keim (1978), Ullmann (1985), and Roberts (1992) all document a positive relationship between dispersed corporate ownership and CSR disclosure in the context of developed countries. Given the difference in people’s ethical reasoning and decisions between developed and
emerging countries (Ge and Thomas, 2007; Lam and Shi, 2008; Whitcomb et al., 1998), does ownership structure also affect CSR in emerging markets such as China? Do the factors that have been previously documented to drive CSR in Anglo-American countries (the USA and the UK) also determine CSR in emerging markets? In order to answer those questions, our study focuses on examining how a firm’s ownership structure and political interference affect CSR in the largest emerging market, namely, China.
Using Shanghai National Accounting Institute’s (SNAI) Chinese firms’ social responsibility ranking, we
show that for non-state-owned firms, corporate ownership dispersion is positively associated to CSR. However, for state-owned firms, this relation is reversed. We attribute the reversed relationship to political interferences and further test this hypothesis by demonstrating that regional economic development is negatively related to CSR for state-owned firms due to decreased political interference in more developed areas. The results also reveal that firm’s size, profitability, employee power, leverage, and growth opportunity affect CSRs in China.
This study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, this study directly examined the relationship between ownership structure and CSR in emerging markets, and our results depict that it is important to consider ownership type in assessing CSR in emerging market where state ownership is still prevalent, such as in China. Second, the high extent of retained government ownership in China allows us to investigate the link between CSR and ownership type using a unique data set provided by SNAI Chinese firms’ social responsibility ranking. Our findings on the relationship between firm ownership type and CSR have implications in other countries where state-ownership is still prevalent, such as Singapore, Malaysia, Austria, and Finland (Claessens et al., 2000; Faccio and Lang, 2002). Third, we provide evidence of associations between CSR and firm’s size, profitability, corporate governance, environmental pressures, and leverage. These findings are consistent with those of prior r
esearch, which are mostly documented in the developed-country context, suggesting that CSR activities are largely driven by strategic motivations and are constricted by economic considerations. Finally, while the issue of CSR has attracted
growing research interest in recent years, most empirical results are based on the US data and this article is the first empirical CSR research examining drivers of CSR in emerging markets to use a large research sample. In both Amato and Amato (2007) and Muller and Whiteman (2009), the corresponding authors advocate non-US-based studies of CSR to examine the effect of cultural, economic, legal, and ethical differences in corporate social performance. This article adds to a growing number of non-US studies by investigating the link between firm’s characteristics and CSR in China, the largest emerging market in the world.
The remainder of this study is organized as follows: The next section shows the relevant literature and identifies our research questions. The third section provides an institutional background and develops hypotheses. The fourth section discusses data gathering and methodology. The fifth section presents results, and the last section concludes, suggesting implications of the study.
Literature review
Prior research on CSR mainly focuses on conceptualizing as well as empirically assessing its impact on business performance. A number of studies have been conducted in an attempt to link CSR with financial performance (i.e., Abratt and Sacks, 1988; Aupperle et al., 1985; Russo and Fouts, 1997; Waddock and Graves, 1997). In addition to corporate performance, recent studies also examined the impact of CSR on other stakeholders of the companies. For example, Mohr et al. (2001) observe the impact of CSR on the customer buying behavior, while Turban and Greening (1997) examine the impact of CSR on the organizational attractiveness to employees.
Compared with the growing body of literature on the nature and consequences of CSR, however, the issue of how to improve the companies’ level of CSR, o r what factors determine CSR level, has received relatively limited attention, especially in the emerging market setting. Jones (1999) establishes that an institutional framework for the determinants of CSR, suggesting that institutional structure, such as sociocultural, national economy, industry, firm, and individual, mainly determines
CSR. Following the logic of Jones (1999), a numbers of studies document several factors affecting the level of CSR based on the context of developed countries. For example, Stanwick and Stanwick (1998) find evidence of a positive relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and organization size, financial performance, and environmental performance. Johnson and Greening (199
documented 翻译
9) examine the effects of corporate governance and institutional ownership type on CSP, which indicates that ownership structure is correlated to CSP.
Although several studies have shed light on the determinants of CSR in developed countries, research on this area is still quite limited in developing countries. Only a few recent articles have addressed this area, and none of them examines the ownership structure–CSR relationship directly in developing countries. Analyzing website reporting of 50 companies in seven Asian countries, Chapple and Moon (2005) conclude that variation of CSR is explained by factors in the respective national business systems. Muller and Kolk (2010), using survey data from 121 auto parts suppliers in Mexico, find that management’s commitment to ethics is a dominant driver o f CSP, and management’s commitment to ethics interacts positively with trade-related pressures to raise CSP levels. Based on a survey method and a small sample, Zu and Song (2009) document that firms smaller in size, state-owned, producing traditional goods, and located in poorer regions are more likely to have managers who opt for a higher CSR rating in China.
The studies related with emerging markets may be inconclusive given the small sample size. Considering the validity and reliability of the conclusion, the multivariate analysis of a large sample may describe a clear picture of determinants of CSR in emerging markets. According to the argument
of Jones (1999) and the general framework for environmental constraint drivers of CSR provided by See (2009), the previous studies only examine one or several aspects of the driving factors of CSR, and are with high chances of missing important control variables affecting levels of CSR. Therefore, the multivariate regression in our study perceives the inclusion of a comprehensive set of control variables from not only existing evidences in prior studies, but also theoretical analysis on the determinants of CSR (Jones, 1999; See,
2009). Using the sample of manufacturing firms in China, we extend the existing research by examining the effect of ownership structure and economic development, as well as political interference, on the level of CSR according to the theoretical framework on harmonious society and Chinese CSR (See, 2009) after controlling for a variety of variables which have been documented as influencing factors of CSR.
Background and hypotheses development
Institutional background
Chinese public listed companies (PLCs) differ from their counterparts in other countries in the relatively large government stake and the associated, generally more concentrated, shareholding structure (Tian
and Estrin, 2008).Table1 compares the percentage of firms with the state as ultimate controller in China versus other countries. Consistent with prior research (Bennett et al., 2005), we observe that the gover nment as owner plays a role in Chinese listed firms quite out of line with that observed in other markets or transition economies. In 1481 Chinese public listed companies with available financial and ownership data, 63.15% have the state as ultimate controller, comparing with the highest 23.50% in Singapore and the lowest 0.08% in the U.S., amongst all other countries. The very high extent of retained government ownership of Chinese listed firms suggests that political interference becomes an important institu tional characteristic of China’s capital market which offers us a great opportunity to investigate the relationship between firm ownership type, ownership structure, and CSR.
Compared with western companies, Chinese enterprises face more severe agency problems that arise between controlling and non-controlling shareholders (Type II agency problem) because of controlling shareholders’ significant stock ownership and control over the firms’ board of directors (Jiang et al., 2010; Johnson et al., 2000). Shleifer and Vishny (1997) point out, ‘‘large investors may represent their own interests, which need not coincide with the interests of other investors in the firm, or with the interests of employees and managers.’’ In order to exploit their own interests, controlling shareholders have clear incentives to divert corporate wealth by tunneling