| In recent years, more and more businesses, academics, and others in China have promoted corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a necessary component of the country's sustainable development. Indeed, in 2008 the Shanghai stock exchange published recommendations encouraging companies to report on CSR issues and providing a framework to do so. However, in-depth studies of the CSR reporting practices of Chinese companies are still needed. Moreover, as previous studies on CSR reporting practices in other parts of the world have shown, corporations are embedded in different social environments and influenced by different regional institutions, and industry norms, among other variables, leading to an uneven development of reporting rates and quality. Given China's size and regional diversity, we expect CSR reporting practices to be unevenly developed within the country as well. Using the Shanghai Stock Exchange to develop a sample of Chinese companies that issue CSR reports, this research project will address the following questions: 1. What is the unique path to the development of CSR in China? 2. Does CSR reporting in China vary by regions and industry sectors, and is there any spatial dependency between each other? 3. What are the internal and external variables that affect the quality of CSR disclosure by Chinese companies?... |
