Local Government’s Drive Mechanism Of CSR

Corporate Social Responsibility has become a focus problem of both public and academic concern in recent years, and study on the driving factor of CSR is one of the hottest debates among the research of CSR. As the local government plays a significant role in driving the implementation of CSR, study on its drive mechanism and influence is the primary premise, which will contribute to policy advice, give full play to the governments, and drive more enterprises to fulfill corporate social responsibility..New Institutionalism is a theoretical basis for analyzing how institutional pressures influence the enterprise. Different from the view of traditional system theory which focuses on the government function, this study will combine New Institutionalism with government policies, and take corporate pressures from local government as an object of study. According to Scott’s Three Pillars of Institutions, government policies and behaviors are defined as directive with regulative pressure, directive with normative pressure and directive with cultural-cognitive pressure in this study. The subjective data are collected from the interviews with senior executives from cases and relevant government departments. Meanwhile, content analysis of enterprises’ and governments’documents about CSR and publicly disclosed CSR information is also used in the study. And then, the drive mechanism of CSR from local government and the differences in effectiveness become clear.This study will give policy advice based on researches into the drive mechanism and effectiveness:1. Legislation drives enterprise to carry out social responsibility.2. Establish more platforms, which could put normative pressure on enterprises, to push the implementation of CSR.3. Enterprises with different cognition of CSR are given corresponding directives.4. Strengthen reward mechanism in local laws and regulations.