IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/endesu/v15y2013i2p265-284.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The potential of corporate environmental responsibility of Chinese state-owned enterprises in Africa

Author

Listed:
  • May Tan-Mullins
  • Giles Mohan

Abstract

Drawing upon empirical data collected in China and Africa, this article evaluates Chinese overseas corporate social responsibility strategies and their effectiveness in mitigating environmental impacts in parts of Africa. China’s enhanced role within the global economy has profound environmental implications for the world. In particular, China has rapidly expanded its environmental footprint in Africa, largely because of its burgeoning economic presence through trade and aid projects such as infrastructure and public works. These large-scale projects, commonly managed by state-owned enterprises (SOEs), tend to be in sectors that are environmentally sensitive such as oil and gas exploration and construction of major infrastructure. At the international level, global financial institutions along with growing pressure from civil society organizations are encouraging China to demonstrate a commitment to addressing the environmental impacts of its overseas projects. At the domestic level, growing awareness of such issues has generated an emerging trend of Chinese entities promoting and adopting corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. These moves seek to improve the environmental and social impacts of Chinese overseas investments. However, research has shown that the outcomes of Chinese overseas CSR strategies (particularly in environmental protection) vary widely due to the operating procedures of the Chinese SOEs in combination with specific local political and social structures. In general, environmental protection is weak and so there is a need for the Chinese and African governments to create a legislative and institutional framework to address Chinese investment in Africa especially in the area of natural resource extraction. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Suggested Citation

  • May Tan-Mullins & Giles Mohan, 2013. "The potential of corporate environmental responsibility of Chinese state-owned enterprises in Africa," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 265-284, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:endesu:v:15:y:2013:i:2:p:265-284
    DOI: 10.1007/s10668-012-9409-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10668-012-9409-x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10668-012-9409-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Julie Pirsch & Shruti Gupta & Stacy Grau, 2007. "A Framework for Understanding Corporate Social Responsibility Programs as a Continuum: An Exploratory Study," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 70(2), pages 125-140, January.
    2. Mikkila, Mirja & Kolehmainen, Osmo & Pukkala, Timo, 2005. "Multi-attribute assessment of acceptability of operations in the pulp and paper industries," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 227-243, February.
    3. J.P. Gond & A. El Akremi & J. Igalens & V. Swaen, 2011. "A corporate social responsibility," Post-Print hal-00826426, HAL.
    4. Hensengerth, Oliver, 2011. "Interaction of Chinese institutions with host governments in dam construction: the Bui dam in Ghana," IDOS Discussion Papers 3/2011, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    5. Abagail McWilliams & Donald S. Siegel & Patrick M. Wright, 2006. "Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategic Implications," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 1-18, January.
    6. Michelle Chan-Fishel & Roxanne Lawson, 2007. "Quid Pro Quo? China's Investment-for-Resource Swaps in Africa," Development, Palgrave Macmillan;Society for International Deveopment, vol. 50(3), pages 63-68, September.
    7. Jeremy Moon & Xi Shen, 2010. "CSR in China Research: Salience, Focus and Nature," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 94(4), pages 613-629, July.
    8. Tang, Zhi & Tang, Jintong, 2012. "Stakeholder–firm power difference, stakeholders' CSR orientation, and SMEs' environmental performance in China," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 436-455.
    9. Andreas Georg Scherer & Guido Palazzo, 2011. "The New Political Role of Business in a Globalized World: A Review of a New Perspective on CSR and its Implications for the Firm, Governance, and Democracy," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(4), pages 899-931, June.
    10. Michel Ferrary, 2009. "A Stakeholder’s Perspective on Human Resource Management," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 87(1), pages 31-43, June.
    11. Milena Parent & David Deephouse, 2007. "A Case Study of Stakeholder Identification and Prioritization by Managers," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 75(1), pages 1-23, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paul W. K. Yankson & Alex B. Asiedu & Kwadwo Owusu & Frauke Urban & Giuseppina Siciliano, 2018. "The livelihood challenges of resettled communities of the Bui dam project in Ghana and the role of Chinese dam†builders," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 36(S1), pages 476-494, March.
    2. Raquel Garde-Sanchez & María Victoria López-Pérez & Antonio M. López-Hernández, 2018. "Current Trends in Research on Social Responsibility in State-Owned Enterprises: A Review of the Literature from 2000 to 2017," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-21, July.
    3. Tao Zhou & Rui Ding & Yiming Du & Yilin Zhang & Shihui Cheng & Ting Zhang, 2022. "Study on the Coupling Coordination and Spatial Correlation Effect of Green Finance and High-Quality Economic Development—Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-22, March.
    4. Ascani, Andrea & Nair, Lakshmi Balachandran & Iammarino, Simona, 2023. "Racing to the bottom or seeking legitimacy? National environmental performance and the location strategies of Chinese MNEs," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(2).
    5. Wegenast, Tim & Krauser, Mario & Strüver, Georg & Giesen, Juliane, 2019. "At Africa’s expense? Disaggregating the employment effects of Chinese mining operations in sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 39-51.
    6. Barry Ackers & Adeyemi Adebayo, 2024. "The nexus between non‐governmental organisations involved in conservation and profit‐seeking state‐owned enterprises: A potential alternative credibility enhancing mechanism for biodiversity disclosur," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(4), pages 2699-2714, July.
    7. Andreas Georg Scherer & Andreas Rasche & Guido Palazzo & André Spicer, 2016. "Managing for Political Corporate Social Responsibility: New Challenges and Directions for PCSR 2.0," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 273-298, May.
    8. Andrea Ascani & Simona Iammarino, 2020. "Is green always attractive? The location choices of Chinese outward FDI," Discussion Paper series in Regional Science & Economic Geography 2020-08, Gran Sasso Science Institute, Social Sciences, revised Nov 2020.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Figueira, Sandra & Gauthier, Caroline & Torres de Oliveira, Rui, 2023. "CSR and stakeholder salience in MNE subsidiaries in emerging markets," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(5).
    2. Qinqin Zheng & Yadong Luo & Stephanie Wang, 2014. "Moral Degradation, Business Ethics, and Corporate Social Responsibility in a Transitional Economy," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 120(3), pages 405-421, March.
    3. May Tan-Mullins & Peter S. Hofman, 2014. "The Shaping of Chinese Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Current Chinese Affairs - China aktuell, Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 43(4), pages 3-18.
    4. Lei Wang & Heikki Juslin, 2013. "Corporate Social Responsibility in the Chinese Forest Industry: Understanding Multiple Stakeholder Perceptions," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(3), pages 129-145, May.
    5. Wenbin Long & Sihai Li & Huiying Wu & Xianzhong Song, 2020. "Corporate social responsibility and financial performance: The roles of government intervention and market competition," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(2), pages 525-541, March.
    6. Danny Zhao‐Xiang Huang, 2022. "An integrated theory of the firm approach to environmental, social and governance performance," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(S1), pages 1567-1598, April.
    7. Maria Järlström & Essi Saru & Sinikka Vanhala, 2018. "Sustainable Human Resource Management with Salience of Stakeholders: A Top Management Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 152(3), pages 703-724, October.
    8. Dolores Gallardo-Vázquez & Luis Enrique Valdez-Juárez & José Luis Lizcano-Álvarez, 2019. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Intellectual Capital: Sources of Competitiveness and Legitimacy in Organizations’ Management Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-29, October.
    9. Rafia Afrin & Ni Peng & Frances Bowen, 2022. "The Wealth Effect of Corporate Water Actions: How Past Corporate Responsibility and Irresponsibility Influence Stock Market Reactions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 180(1), pages 105-124, September.
    10. Scherer, Andreas, 2013. "Legitimacy Strategies in a Globalized World: Organizing for Complex and Heterogeneous Environments," Papers 566, World Trade Institute.
    11. Francesco Perrini & Angeloantonio Russo & Antonio Tencati & Clodia Vurro, 2011. "Deconstructing the Relationship Between Corporate Social and Financial Performance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 102(1), pages 59-76, March.
    12. Min Zhang & Biying Jin & G. Alan Wang & Thong Ngee Goh & Zhen He, 2016. "A Study of Key Success Factors of Service Enterprises in China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 134(1), pages 1-14, March.
    13. Magdalena Öberseder & Bodo Schlegelmilch & Verena Gruber, 2011. "“Why Don’t Consumers Care About CSR?”: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Role of CSR in Consumption Decisions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 104(4), pages 449-460, December.
    14. Łukasz Matuszak & Ewa Różańska, 2019. "A Non-Linear and Disaggregated Approach to Studying the Impact of CSR on Accounting Profitability: Evidence from the Polish Banking Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-21, January.
    15. Joern H. Block & Marcus Wagner, 2014. "The Effect of Family Ownership on Different Dimensions of Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from Large US Firms," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(7), pages 475-492, November.
    16. Rasche, Andreas, 2015. "The corporation as a political actor – European and North American perspectives," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 4-8.
    17. Lis, Bettina, 2012. "The Relevance of Corporate Social Responsibility for a Sustainable Human Resource Management: An Analysis of Organizational Attractiveness as a Determinant in Employees’ Selection of a (Potential) Emp," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 23(3), pages 279-295.
    18. Ivan Bozhikin & Nikolay Dentchev, 2018. "Discovering a Wilderness of Regulatory Mechanisms for Corporate Social Responsibility: Literature Review," Economic Alternatives, University of National and World Economy, Sofia, Bulgaria, issue 2, pages 145-174, June.
    19. Dorian Aliu & Ayten Akatay & Armando Aliu & Umut Eroglu, 2017. "Public Policy Influences on Academia in the European Union," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(1), pages 21582440176, February.
    20. Fuming Jiang & Tatiana Zalan & Herman H. M. Tse & Jie Shen, 2018. "Mapping the Relationship Among Political Ideology, CSR Mindset, and CSR Strategy: A Contingency Perspective Applied to Chinese Managers," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 147(2), pages 419-444, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:endesu:v:15:y:2013:i:2:p:265-284. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.