Does the stakeholders – corporate social responsibility (CSR) relationship exist in emerging countries? Evidence from China

Purpose – This study aims to examine whether the association between stakeholders and corporate social responsibility (CSR) documented in developed countries exists in China. Design/methodology/approach – This study tests the hypothesis and examines the impact of the central government, political connection, shareholders, customers, suppliers, employees and foreign investors on CSR practices by estimating the ordinary least squares regressions. Findings – Using the CSR indexes developed by the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS), this study finds that the central government, supplier concentration and foreign investors are positively associated with CSR, whereas shareholder concentration and customer concentration are negatively associated with CSR in China. Inconsistent with findings documented in developed countries, the result indicates that employee power is not associated with CSR. Originality/value – This paper extends prior research by including stakeholders, such as government and foreign investors, who have a unique impact on CSR activities in emerging markets in addition to other stakeholders. The findings have implications in other countries where state ownership is also prevalent (Claessens et al. , 2000; Faccio and Lang, 2002). While the issue of CSR has attracted growing research interest in recent years, most empirical results are based on the US data. This paper contributes to the empirical CSR research by examining determinants of CSR in an emerging market. Interestingly, some of the findings are contrary to those documented in developed countries. The contradiction suggests the danger in generalizing CSR–stakeholder research findings in developed countries to emerging economies.