Corporate Social Responsibility in China: An Analysis of Domestic and Foreign Retailers' Sustainability Dimensions

In the past decade, a sizeable body of literature has built up on the concept and characteristics of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Western countries, where it has also been referred to as sustainability. More recently, attention has grown for CSR in emerging countries. Remarkably, China has hardly been studied so far. This paper aims to help fill this gap by considering, against this background, the CSR notion in China, through an exploration of a small sample of large retailers in China, both Chinese and non-Chinese companies.

 

The analysis of CSR/sustainability dimensions, as communicated by these large retailers in both the Chinese and the English language, shows substantial differences between the Chinese and international contexts. Interestingly, the largest divergence can be found for international retailers between their Chinese and corporate attention for CSR (so home versus host settings), most notably in the case of Carrefour, and to a lesser extent Wal-Mart.

 

In the Chinese context, there are differences between the Chinese and international retailers as well (so domestic versus foreign firms), with the former reporting more on economic dimensions, including philanthropy, and the latter more on product responsibility - contentious labour issues and the environment receive relatively limited attention in both groups in China. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for research and practice.