A Study on Institution of Corporate Social Responsibility: A Review, Summary and Prospect

A consensus on whether companies should fulfill their social responsibility has been reached in the 1990s. That is: companies should take social responsibility. However, there is no universal acknowledgment about what kind of responsibility companies should take and how to fulfill social responsibility. In this paper, a systematic summary has been built from both the national level and corporate level by reviewing domestic studies on the institution of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in recent years. The study summarizes the defects, the countermeasures, and suggestions of CSR institution on a national level in our country. In addition to the suggestions proposed through comparing Chinese and foreign institutions, this paper mainly summarizes those proposed by domestic scholars that are suitable for China’s national conditions. On a corporate level, we summarize the internal management of CSR institution, its external influence on the company, and the functional mechanism of CSR institution for stimulating enterprises to perform social responsibility. We find that the studies of CSR institution on a corporate level mainly focus on the relationship between CSR institution and corporate reputation, competitiveness, and performance. But the conclusion is not absolutely consistent. Most of the researches are normative researches while empirical researches are rare. This study also makes a statistical analysis on 231 articles on CSR institution published in CSSCI by domestic scholars. The analysis shows that the number of related studies reached the breaking point in 2008 and arrived at the peak in 2009, since when it has become a research hotspot. On the variation of research topics, topics change with the development of the society and the transition of social problems. Lastly, based on previous researches, this paper analyzes the prospect of future research content and research directions.