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University of Georgia. It has been stated that CSR is the combination of economic,
legal, moral and self-motivated charitable responsibilities that corporations are to
shoulder. That is to say, the society, while demanding corporations to perform their
own economic duties, also expects them to observe the law, conform to ethics, and
show enthusiasm in public welfare undertakings. The third concept is the ―Triple
Bottom Lines‖, proposed by John Elkington, a Britain-based scholar. He believes that
corporate behavior must meet the economic, social and environmental bottom lines.
It is not enough just to assess and report the economic, social and environmental
performance of a corporation; rather, values, problems and process should also be
involved. Corporations should fully consider the concerned parties and expectations
from the society as well as the possible negative economic, social and environmental
impacts caused by their operation.
In China, concepts and definitions concerning CSR, which share more or less
similarity, have been put forward after a systematic study on overseas CSR theories.
There is a consensus that CSR refers to responsibilities of corporations, besides
those for the owner and profit-making, towards interested parties, including
employees, users, partners, communities and the government, and towards the
environment and future generations, with the ultimate goal of sustainable
development of the economy and society. CSR could be divided into three
subcategories according to the degree of voluntariness: obligatory, duty-bound and
voluntary. ―Obligatory responsibilities‖ require that corporations as social agents be
subject to law responsibilities; ―duty-bound responsibilities‖ means corporations as
profit-making organizations must perform economic functions, the failure of which
could result in the end of growth or even of survival; ―voluntary responsibilities‖
expect corporations, in a market economy, to take a high commercial ethic standard,
with the willingness to make more contributions to the society. This could be a free
choice and important embodiment of value-realization by corporations.
China Reading Weekly: Would you please give a brief introduction of CSR
development in China?
Liu Peng: CSR is highly valued in China. Before the reform and opening-up in 1978,
when the concept about CSR was still vague, Chinese enterprises were already
doing a great job by increasing social wealth, providing products to meet social
demand and jobs for employees, strengthening environmental efforts, guaranteeing
employees‘ social welfare and logistics---all was done on the basis of corporation
development. Then since 1978, when Western CSR ideas were introduced to China
and began their influences, China has been making more efforts in CSR research
and practice. On the one hand, with the implementation of China‘s reform and
opening-up policy, multinational corporations are entering Chinese market, some of
which, when cooperating or trading with Chinese corporations, have specified
requirements as to whether the latter meet their own CSR standards by carrying out
CSR inspections on corporations in the supply chain. Chinese exporting and
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