University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

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In line with the collectivistic behaviour in Chinese society, the responses from the
questionnaire survey to Chinese companies show that governmental policies are of
significant influence on the choice of CSR projects. In Danish companies, it is the
opposite, in which governmental policies have little to no effect on the choice of
CSR projects. This not only shows that Danish corporations are independent and
have freedom to steer their directions, but this also affirms the hypothesis that Danish
corporations are individualistic in behaviour. Although Danish society is generally
collectivistic, the corporations behave differently as Denmark practices a free-market
economy, thus allowing the market to dictate the economy without much government
intervention.
Collectivism is also related to nationalistic behaviour, which in this context, means
having a consideration for the country’s needs in the activities of the corporation.
Unlike Danish corporations, Chinese corporations exhibited a more nationalistic
behaviour as some of the Chinese corporations professed intentions to expand their
CSR focus from a local to a more national context. In China, one of its biggest
problem is poverty, thus when Chinese companies were asked of their preferred
projects, five out of six companies selected “building a school”. This portrays their
desire to participate in nation-building activities. Contrastingly, Danish corporations
seemed to be more focused on the local context for their CSR projects. Their
preferred projects vary a lot more than the Chinese corporations; most chose projects
with environmental or cost-saving implications. Environmental-themed projects
suggest the desire to help the world, while cost-saving projects seemed to only
benefit the corporations. However, it is noted that there was one Danish company
that mentioned that the choices of projects were too narrow, but nevertheless, the
responses from the other four companies served as the basis of this argument.
Therefore, it appears that Chinese corporations follow closely to its country’s needs,
whereas, this nationalistic behaviour was not demonstrated by Danish corporations.
Interestingly, Chinese companies mentioned labour unions as one of the major
proponents for CSR proposals. Labour unions seem to be influential in CSR
development in Chinese companies as they are strongly associated to the government,
and thus also to the Chinese Communist Party. This may be due to the long history of
the active role of labour unions in all kinds of movements in China. The working
class is considered the highest rank in the socialist mode. In contrast, labour unions
play an almost insignificant role in the CSR development of Danish companies. One
Danish company also noted that employees are given the choice to join labour unions
hence participation is not compulsory. Once again, this indicates that the
collectivistic behaviour that is present in Chinese society can also be observed in
companies.
In power-relations, the strong influence that the government has on the Chinese
companies was observed. The Chinese government seemed to be able to control
these companies well through the government policies and the fact that labour unions
are also government-affiliated. This power that the Chinese government has over the
companies could be related to the “guan xi” or the social network relationships that
seems to determine the degree and also the kinds of favour that the government
would afford companies (Xu 2005). Although not proven here, it is believed that the
reason that Chinese companies seem willing to follow government policies could be
due to the fear of losing out in the economic pie. But then again, it could also be the