A Study On The Institutional Pressures' Influence On The Corporate Social Performance: An Organizational Legitimacy Perspective

Since the reform and opening up three decades, a lot of social issues have emerged although the great economic achievements, such as "employment discrimination, environmental pollution, poor quality, and tax evasion and bribery". On the other hand, many companies have begun to establish balanced development strategies of enterprises and society. They begin to balance the interests of the public and themselves and improve the corporate social performance. In the context of the objects conflict which exists between the corporate social performance and the corporate financial performance, the questions of the influencing factors and driving mechanism of the corporate social performance have become the focus by the management scholars. Strategic management scholars now mainly focused on the relationship between the corporate social performance and the corporate financial performance under the perspective of the enterprise competitive advantage or the Resource-based View. But after three decades of empirical tests, the conclusion has not been given uniform but is more complicated. Meanwhile, the key questions that "how do the enterprises face social issues and what strategies do the response to the institutional pressures" are also needed in-depth research in the corporate social responsibility research literatures.Based on the neo-institutional paradigm of the organizational Sociology, this thesis takes the organizational legitimacy needs as the entry point and attempts to explore the internal mechanism of the influences of the external institutional pressures on the corporate social strategic response and the corporate social performance and the mediate effects of the corporate social strategic response. Besides, based on the organizational identity theory and the research results of organizational culture, this study will research on the moderator effects of the different organizational culture orientations on the relationships above-mentioned. Specific point of view, this article will focus on the following issues step by step:(1) Whether the legitimacy needs are the key motivations to push enterprises to fulfill their social responsibilities in China, and what external institutional pressures played significant impacts on the corporate social performance? (2) What social strategic response will the enterprises from when faced the external institutional pressure? What is its intrinsic reaction process and what is the internal mechanism of the impacts of the institutional pressures on the corporate social strategic response? (3) To what extent does the corporate social strategic response influence the corporate social performance, and what roles does it take between the institutional pressures and the social performance? (4) Will the impacts of the external institutional pressures on the corporate social performance be different between firms? Will different organizational culture orientations have impacts on the above-mentioned mechanisms?Firstly, using an exploratory case study method which covers 5 different industries and taking the analysis process of the mutual confirm of the case data, theory and the frame, this thesis explore the relationships between the perceived institutional pressures of the enterprise, the corporate social strategic response and the corporate social performance. The Study demonstrates the rationality of the research design by proposing proposition that the institutional pressures will have a positive effect on both the corporate social strategic response and the corporate social performance and that the corporate social strategic response will have a positive effect on the corporate social performance. Secondly, the thesis places the management of the corporate social responsibility and the generation mechanism of the corporate social performance in the institutional environment. Based on the neo-institutional theory, strategic planning theory and organizational culture orientation research findings, and explore, through the literature review and hierarchical analysis, this study takes more in-depth theoretical interpretation of the propositions derived from the exploratory case studies. This thesis constructs the theoretical model of the study by revealing the internal mechanism of the relationships of the "institutional pressures-corporate social strategic response-corporate social performance" and the "organizational culture orientation-the relationship of the institutional pressures and the corporate social performance". Thirdly, this study provides the details of the questionnaire design process, the main contents of the questionnaire, the design basis of the scale, the source of the indicators, the principle of the sample selection, and the return process of the questionnaires, as well as the major research methods. The thesis does the empirical tests of the 15 research hypothesizes based on the obtained data from 220 effective samples through structural equation modeling, hierarchical regression analysis and other statistical methods. Finally, the study describes the main conclusions of the thesis and does some further discussion and analysis related to the conclusions. After summarizing the theoretical contributions and management implications, the thesis reports the lack of the study and the direction of the further study.Through the research work above, this study reaches the following conclusions. (1) The enterprise perceived institutional pressures have significant positive influences on the corporate social strategic response and the corporate social performance. (2) The institutional pressures include regulatory pressure, normative pressure and cognitive pressure, and the significance and the extents of the impacts of thesis three pressures on the corporate social strategic response and the corporate social performance are different. (3) The corporate social strategic response has significant influence on the corporate social performance, which plays different types of mediate effects on the relationships of the different institutional pressures and the corporate social performance. (4) The competition cultural orientation plays a positive moderator role between the relationship of the external institutional pressures and the corporate social performance.Overall, this study goes beyond the old research idea of "corporate economic performance and corporate social performance", which remains mixed conclusions, and achieves the following research progress:(1) The study goes beyond the Resource-based View and the view of atomic doctrine, and proposes the new corporate social responsibility driven mechanism in the context of the fuzzy conclusion of the relationship between the corporate social performance and the corporate competitive advantage. (2) The thesis highlights the "corporate social strategic response" process which has been neglected by the researchers. The author reveals the ways and process of how to improve the management capacity of the corporate social responsibility from three dimensions, which are the integration of the social programs, encourage employee participation and the evaluation of the corporate social performance. (3) The thesis constructs and empirically tests two kinds of analytical ideas of "external institutional pressures-corporate social strategic response-corporate social performance" and " organizational culture orientation-the relationship of the institutional pressures and the corporate social performance" and realizes the integration of the institutions and corporate strategies in the analysis of the factors of the corporate social performance. Also, the study provides some new ideas for contingency understanding of the relationship between the external environments and the corporate social performance.