A Study On Institutional Environment,Corporate Social Responsibility And The Relationship Quality Of Stakeholders

Although China has made great progress in economy since the beginning of reform and opening up, a lot of negative social issues have emerged. The interests of businesses are running counter to society's interests, which triggered the debates on the topic of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The rising expectation of social stakeholders and the gap between it and reality make the issue urgent. In the context of the objects conflict which exists between the corporate social responsibility and the corporate financial performance, the questions of the influencing factors and driving mechanism of the corporate social responsibility have become the focus by the management scholars. Management scholars now mainly focused on two fields. On the one hand, some scholars emphasize corporate should fulfill their social responsibilities according the theory of social contracts. On the other hand, the relationship between the corporate social responsibility and the corporate financial performance under the perspective of the enterprise competitive advantage or the resource-based view has not been given uniform but is more complicated. Meanwhile, the key questions that "how do the enterprises face social issues and what strategy decision-making 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 and stakeholders theory, this dissertation takes the organizational legitimacy needs and improving the relationship quality with stakeholders needs as the entry point, and attempts to explore the agents, the process of decision-making and the influence effect effect of CSR according the thinking of "the institutional environment--the attention of top management team (TMT) and CSR--the relationship quality with stakeholders". The following parts are the main work of this dissertation.Firstly, using an exploratory case study method with6listed companies and taking the analysis process of the mutual confirm of the case data, theories and the frame, this dissertation explore the relationships between the perceived institutional pressures of the enterprise, the attention of TMT on social responsibilities and the corporate social responsibility. The study demonstrates the rationality of the research design by proposing proposition.Secondly, based on the neo-institutional theory, stakeholders theory and attention-based view of the firm, 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 dissertation constructs the theoretical model of the study by revealing the internal mechanism of the relationships of "the institutional environment--the attention of TMT and CSR--the relationship quality with stakeholders".Thirdly, the dissertation does the empirical tests of the research hypothesizes based on the obtained data from161effective samples through hierarchical regression analysis and other statistical methods.Finally, the study describes the main conclusions of the dissertation and does some further discussion and analysis related to the conclusions. After summarizing the theoretical contributions and management implications, the dissertation 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 institutional environment include regulatory pressure, normative pressure and cognitive pressure.The CSR include economic and legal responsibility, and charity responsibility. The stakeholders include insiders, outside business partners, and the public.(2) On the one hand, the enterprise perceived institutional pressures have significant positive influences on CSR. The impacts of the three pressures on the attention of TMT and the corporate social responsibility are different. On the other hand, the attention of TMT has significant influence on the corporate social responsibility, which plays a mediate effect on the relationships of the different institutional pressures and the corporate social responsibility.(3) The two dimensions of CSR have significant influences on the three dimensions of the relationship quality of stakeholders.(4) The leadership style plays a moderator role between the relationship of the external institutional environment and the attention of TMT.Compare to former studies, the following aspects are unique points of this dissertation:(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 responsibility and the corporate financial performance.(2) The dissertation highlights "the corporate social responsibility strategic decision process" which has been neglected by the researchers.(3) The dissertation constructs and empirically tests two kinds of analytical ideas of "the institutional environment--the attention of TMT and CSR--the relationship quality with stakeholders" and "The leadership style--the relationship of the institutional environment and the attention of TMT" and realizes the integration of the institutions, corporate strategies and stakeholder in the analysis of the CSR.