Corporate Social Responsibility And Operating Performance: An Empirical Study Of China's Listed Companies

Companies not only strive to maintain their innovation and competitiveness, while chasing for better operating performance, does it worth the same effort to pursue values such as honesty and integrity? As corporate social responsibility becomes the world's social phenomenon, scholars have called for companies to assume the social responsibility and not neglect their obligations to employees, consumers, as well as environment and other stakeholders.The purpose of business existence is to seek profit, however, engaging corporate social responsibilities is often been recognized as a heavy burden to achieve profit maximization. Although the benefits promoted by scholars, such as reduce operational risk, increase consumer loyalty, improve corporate image, enhance employee loyalty and productivity, etc. have tremendous appeal to the management level, but ultimately whether CSR can improve firms'operating performance is the key.The study adopts content analysis methodology with data draw from 2008 financial statements of China's listed companies. The result shows China's listed companies perform their social responsibilities well to both the government and the shareholders, however scoring low to their employees, suppliers and debtors. To improve the current situation, we suggest the government could impose new regulations to enhance information discourse and develop a punishment mechanism, thus to encourage companies to assume their social responsibilities.