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Patterns of Corporate Responsibility Practices for High Financial Performance: Evidence from Three Chinese Societies

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Abstract

The growing literature on corporate responsibility (CR) has drawn attention to how different CR practices complement each other and interact in the form of configurations. This study investigated CR patterns associated with high financial performance for 466 firms in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. We applied a set-theoretic approach using qualitative comparative analysis to identify similarities and differences across these three societies in configurations of CR practices relating to customer, employee, investor, community, and environmental stakeholder groups. The extent to which the financial benefits of various configurations of CR practices are attributable to institutional factors is examined.

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Notes

  1. We also checked the correlations of the CR practices and financial performance in each setting. Most of the coefficients were below .60 and significant at p < 0.01, which showed a weak or moderate relationship (Cohen et al. 2002).

  2. QCA analysis can consider counterfactuals in the analysis and provide both parsimonious and complex results depending on how counterfactuals are treated (Fiss 2011; Ragin 2008a; Ragin and Sonnett 2005). A parsimonious approach assumes that counterfactuals are true or consistent with the outcome variables, whereas a complex approach treats counterfactual cases as being false or inconsistent. Thus, complex solutions are relatively more conservative.

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Acknowledgments

This research received support through the Central Research Grant (G-YL38) from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management & Marketing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong

    Na Ni & Carlos Lo

  2. Faculty of Business Administration, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6, Canada

    Carolyn Egri

  3. Department of Business Administration, National Chengchi University, Taipei 116, Taiwan

    Carol Yeh-Yun Lin

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  1. Na Ni
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  2. Carolyn Egri
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  3. Carlos Lo
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Correspondence to Na Ni.

Appendix

Appendix

CR Practices

To what extent your organization adopts specific practices. My organization systematically:

[9-point Likert-type scale, 1 = strongly disagree to 9 = strongly agree]

Customer CR Practices

  • Adapts products or services to enhance the level of customer satisfaction.

  • Provides all customers with a very high quality service.

  • Provides all customers with the information needed to make sound purchasing decisions.

  • Satisfies the complaints of all customers about the company’s products or services.

Employee CR Practices

  • Financially supports all employees who want to pursue further education.

  • Provides all employees with compensation (salaries, wages) that properly and fairly reward them for their work.

  • Provides for equal opportunity in the hiring, training, and promotion of women.

  • Provides for the training and development of all employees.

  • Treats all employees equitably and respectfully, regardless of ethnic or racial background.

Investor CR Practices

  • Incorporates the interests of all our investors in business decisions.

  • Meets the information needs and requests of all our investors.

  • Provides all investors with timely and accurate financial information about the organization.

  • Seeks the input of all our investors regarding strategic decisions.

Community CR Practices

  • Financially supports community activities (e.g., arts, culture, sports).

  • Financially supports education in the communities where we operate.

  • Gives money to charities in the communities where we operate.

  • Helps improve the quality of life in the communities where we operate.

Environment CR Practices

  • Conducts environmental life-cycle and risk assessments of all organizational activities.

  • Incorporates environmental performance objectives in organizational plans.

  • Issues a formal report regarding corporate environmental performance.

  • Measures the organization’s environmental performance.

Financial Performance

[9-point Likert-type scale, 1 = strongly disagree to 9 = strongly agree].

Over the past three years, relative to our most relevant competitors:

  • Our return on investment has been substantially better.

  • Our sales growth has been substantially better.

  • Our profit growth has been substantially better.

  • Our return on assets has been substantially better.

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Ni, N., Egri, C., Lo, C. et al. Patterns of Corporate Responsibility Practices for High Financial Performance: Evidence from Three Chinese Societies. J Bus Ethics 126, 169–183 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1947-0

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