Research On Corporate Philanthropy From The Perspective Of Legitimacy ——Taking Shanghai A Chemical Industry Park As An Example

The chemical industry occupies an important position in the Chinese national economy,but due to its highly pollutive and risky characteristics,there is a significant phenomenon of NIMBY effect and sometimes even fear of mentioning the chemical industry.There are more than 600 chemical parks and more than 10,000 chemical enterprises across the country.How to promote these chemical enterprises to implement charitable acts and establish a good industry image is a common topic that the chemical industry has been discussing.At the same time,most of the current researches on legitimacy and corporate philanthropy regard the institutional environment as static,and they use quantitative methods to explore the correlation between institutional factors and corporate philanthropy,and there are few studies on the chemical industry.Therefore,this study mainly uses qualitative research methods,takes enterprises in Shanghai Chemical Industry Park as the research object,and divides the development of the park into the initial stage of construction（1996-2006）,the middle stage of construction（2007-2015）,and the later stage of construction（2016-present）.In the three stages,the author introduced participatory observation and in-depth interviews with representatives of enterprises,governments,NGOs and communities in the park,according to the analysis framework of “environment-action-motivation”,to understand the changes in the institutional environment with the different development stages of the park,the dynamic change process of legality’s impact on corporate philanthropy,and provide reference for corporate social workers to intervene in chemical corporate philanthropy.This study found that organizational legitimacy is the catalyst for enterprises to carry out charitable behavior,and corporate philanthropy is one of the means and strategies for organizations to obtain legitimacy.Regulation,normative and cognitive legitimacy pressures play an important role in promoting corporate philanthropy through government,stakeholders,and culture,respectively.But the institutional environment is a dynamic process,The impact of legitimacy on corporate philanthropy is also dynamic.This dynamic is mainly reflected in three aspects: First,the legitimacy pressure is dynamic.The three types of legitimacy pressure,regulation,norm,and cognition,have different impacts on corporate philanthropy at different development stages of the park.In the early stage of construction,the community’s normative legitimacy pressure is the dominant factor;in the middle stage of construction,the government’s regulatory legitimacy pressure is the dominant factor;in the later stage of construction,the cultural cognition legitimacy pressure is the dominant factor.Second,the way of corporate philanthropy participation is dynamic.In the early stage of construction,most companies participated passively;in the middle stage of construction,most companies participated in mobilization;in the later stage of construction,most companies participated voluntarily.Third,the motivation of corporate charitable participation is dynamic.In the early stage of construction,most companies are motivated by economic motives;in the middle stage of construction,most companies are motivated by political connections;in the later stage of construction,most companies are motivated by strategic charitable purposes.