Commitment to corporate, social, and environmental responsibilities: an insight into contrasting perspectives in China and the US

Abstract

This cross-national study investigates antecedents and outcomes of corporate responsibility (CR) practices to stakeholders and the natural environment in the contrasting contexts of China and the US. In general, we found partial support for the proposition that the divergence of CR stakeholder practices across nations is dependent on the institutional environments of business. Whereas customer and community stakeholder practices were found to be more prevalent in US companies, there were no significant country differences in the prevalence of employee, investor, and environmental CR practices. In addition, we found that the relationship between the prevalence of CR practices and business outcomes (financial performance, corporate reputation, and employee commitment) varied depending on the type of CR practice and country.

Keywords:

• corporate responsibility
• stakeholders
• international
• China
• US