Research On The Influence Of MNCs’ Social Responsibility On Subsidiary’s Competitive Advantage In China

Since in the 1990s, a social responsibility movement has been carried out all over the world, which has greatly influenced all works of field of every country. To multinational corporations(MNCs), they have realized the significance of fulfilling corporate social responsibility(CSR) and taken CSR as the integrating part of corporate value system and strategic management system. The development of practice impels academic fields to connect MNCs’social responsibility with the competitive advantage of MNC and its overseas subsidiaries. The research takes MNCs’subsidiary in China as the object of study, and focus on the content of how MNCs’social responsibility influences subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China. After deeply analyzing the relations between host country network and overseas subsidiary’s competitive advantage, CSR and host country network, and that between CSR and overseas subsidiary’s competitive advantage, the research establishes the theoretical framework from MNCs’social responsibility in China to host country network and finally to subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China, and then provides empirical evidence for it by using 123 subsidiaries in China, which further studies how MNCs’ social responsibility influences subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China and explains clearly the mechanism and paths of the influence of MNCs’ social responsibility on subsidiary’s competitive advantage in ChinaAfter theoretical and empirical analysis, the following conclusions are given. Firstly, MNCs’social responsibility has obvious network effect. The fulfillment of CSR of subsidiary in China influences greatly the network structure features (network size, network heterogeneity and network centrality) and network relation features (network relation intensity and relation quality) of subsidiary in China. The fulfillment of CSR of subsidiary in China does good to the enlargement of network size, the improvement of network heterogeneity, network centrality and network relation quality as well as the enforcement of relation between subsidiary and its stake owner. The CSR of subsidiary in China can be divided into five dimensions, namely economic, environmental,legal, social relation and philanthropic responsibilities. However, there exist certain differences in terms of the influence of different dimensions on the network of subsidiary in China. There exists significant positive relationship in the following five aspects:the influence of the dimensions of economic, social relation and philanthropic responsibilities on the network size, the influence of the dimensions of economic and environmental responsibilities on the network heterogeneity, the influence of the dimensions of economic, environmental, legal, social relation and philanthropic responsibilities on the network centrality, the influence of the dimensions of economic, environmental, legal and philanthropic responsibilities on the network relation intensity, and the influence of the dimensions of economic, environmental, legal and social relation responsibilities on the network relation quality.Secondly, the influence of MNCs’ social responsibility on subsidiary’s competitive advantage is significantly positive. Namely, the fulfillment of CSR of subsidiary in China can strengthen subsidiary’s competitive advantage. On one hand, the five dimensions of CSR of subsidiary in China (economic, environmental, legal, social relation and philanthropic responsibilities) can directly influence subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China significantly and positively. On the other hand, the CSR of subsidiary in China can indirectly influence subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China significantly and positively via network centrality, heterogeneity, network relation intensity and quality of subsidiary in China.Thirdly, the network structure features and network relation features of subsidiary in China influence subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China. The network centrality, heterogeneity, relation intensity and quality influence subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China significantly and positively：the more improving network centrality and heterogeneity become, the more strengthening subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China becomes; the more improving network relation intensity and quality become, the more strengthening subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China becomes.Fourthly, the network structure features and network relation features of subsidiary in China take as part intermediary during the course of the influence of MNCs’social responsibility on the subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China, at the same time, there are some differences in different intermediary components. As the five dimensions of CSR of subsidiary in China can directly influence subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China significantly and positively, the network features of subsidiary in China take as part intermediary in influencing the subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China. Specifically, the two network structure features such as network centrality and heterogeneity, and the two network relation features such as relation intensity and quality take as part intermediary respectively, and, moreover, there are some differences in the influence of different dimensions of the CSR of subsidiary in China on the intermediaries. Namely, the dimensions of economic and environmental responsibility via their impact on the network centrality, heterogeneity, relation intensity and quality indirectly influence the subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China; the dimension of legal responsibility via its impact on the network centrality, relation intensity and quality indirectly influence the subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China; the dimension of social relation responsibility via its impact on the network centrality and relation quality indirectly influence the subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China; the dimension of philanthropic responsibility via its impact on the network centrality and relation intensity indirectly influence the subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China.The research contributes in three aspects. Firstly, it develops the scale for the CSR of subsidiary in China and then provides empirical evidence for it. Although there are lots of empirical research and scales in terms of CSR, yet there are lacks for empirical research and scale for the CSR of subsidiary in China. The research firstly divides the CSR of subsidiary in China into five dimensions of economic, environmental, legal, social relation and philanthropic responsibilities, and then develops the scale of the CSR of subsidiary in China, at the same time proving to be reliable and valid with the help of data of sample.Secondly, on the bases of the theories of corporate social responsibility and social network, it pats forward that MNCs’social responsibility has obvious network effect. By connecting corporate social responsibility theory with social network theory, the research focuses on the question whether MNCs’social responsibility can influences the host country network of overseas subsidiary or not, concluding that MNCs’social responsibility has obvious network effect. Moreover, after empirical analysis, the research further proves to be that the fulfillment of the CSR of subsidiary in China can significantly influence the network structure and relation features of subsidiary in China.Thirdly, the research establishes the mechanism framework for the influence of MNCs’social responsibility on the subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China. Basing on resource-based theory, along with CSR theory, stake owner theory, MNC theory, social network theory, the research specifically analyzes the mechanism and paths for the influence of MNCs’ social responsibility on the subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China, and then establishes the mechanism framework from MNCs’ social responsibility in China to host country network and finally to subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China, and at the same time provides empirical evidence for it. The mechanism framework demonstrates that the CSR of subsidiary in China influences the subsidiary’s competitive advantage in China via its impact on the host network, and the host network takes as part intermediary in the terms of the influence of the CSR of subsidiary in China on the subsidiary’s competitive advantage.