An Empirical Research On The Relationship Between Corporate Social Responsibility And Performance

In the era of economic globalization and the internationalization of business administration, with the development of the society and the fierce competition between enterprises, corporate social responsibility (CSR for short) gains more and more attention. CSR has become the trend of corporate development around the world, which is a new business rule in the era of economic globalization. Both in the business wond and the theoretical circle, CSR is not regarded as a slogan any more, but as a conduct. Besides, it has become a great irresistible pressure and a momentum of development for enterprises to undertake corporate social responsibility. With the coming of21st century, all the top-ranking enterprises integrate social responsibility with their strategies, daily operations and management systems. CSR becomes not only an important part of their core tasks but also an essential means to enhance their global competitiveness.At present, the social responsibility activities of China’s enterprises are in the preliminary stage of practice. Most domestic enterprises have a weak sense of social responsibility. According to2009Report on Chinese Entrepreneur’s Growth and Evolution, nearly96%of the enterprise operators approve that an excellent entrepreneur should have a strong sense of social responsibility, which indicates that most Chinese enterprise operators understand what responsibility an enterprise should undertake and the significance of doing so, and however, they pay much more attention to corporate financial performance than to social performance. And thus, these enterprises still cling to the development objective of chasing profit maximization, which makes the operators adopt the attitude of neglecting their social responsibility and as a result, they are reluctant to undertake the responsibility proactively.According to Stakeholder Theory, the writer of the thesis constructs a CSR evaluation index system composed of employees, stockholders, creditors, government, consumers, suppliers and communities, to evaluate and analyze the status quo of CSR in China, on the basis of which the writer conducts an empirical research on the relationship between corporate social responsibility and corporate performance by using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM for short). The research includes firstly the analysis of the influence of CSR on cooperate performance in the aspect of effect, path and degree and secondly the analysis of the influence of CSR on different corporate performances including financial, operational and developing performances. In accordance with the result of the empirical research, the writer presents her suggestions on how China’s enterprises can carry out CSR to improve corporate performances.The result of the empirical research shows that the CSR of China’s listed companies are still in an unbalanced state. State-owned enterprises and large enterprises undertake too many responsibilities and those enterprises in the southern area which develop rapidly make more contribution to CSR. So do highly profitable industries. Compared with long-established enterprises which have been listed for over ten years, those new enterprises have a stronger sense of social responsibility and can actively undertake more social responsibilities, which is the same with government monopolized industries. Wherever an enterprise is, whatever characteristics it has and no matter what the status quo is, CSR has a positive effect on corporate perfonnances, that is, the fulfillment of social responsibility will promote corporate comprehensive performances. But this promotive effect is indirect, which will vary with the location and nature of the enterprises and the status quo of the industry they belongs to. Consequently, while making a decision concerning CSR, an enterprise must take into consideration its recourses and capability, making full use of the limited resources for social responsibility to promote corporate performances. If an enterprise fails in analyzing the objects of social responsibility, and fails in considering the impact of social responsibility practices on corporate performances, instead of promoting its comprehensive performances, its hazard investment can only bring negative effect on the whole enterprise.Therefore, the writer of the thesis advocates that an enterprise should combine social responsibility with its strategic planning and long-term targets when making a managerial decision. By means of assigning the social responsibilities which every stakeholder should undertake, an enterprise can obtain the competitive advantage which can’t be gained through other investments. What’s more, through undertaking actively social responsibilities, the objective of multi-win-win between enterprises and the society can be finally achieved.