Topic: Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting in China: Symbol or Substance?

Speaker: Professor Chris Marquis

Harvard Business School

Time: 10:00-11:30am, Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Location: Room 216, New Building of GSM, Peking University.

Abstract:

This study integrates institutional and stakeholder theories to develop a socio-political model that explains: a) how different types of stakeholder dependencies lead Chinese corporations to issue corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports and b) how risk of stakeholder monitoring influences the extent to which such CSR communications are more or less symbolic. We hypothesize that corporate relationships that influence the degree of socio-political dependence of the firm such as private versus state control, executive service on political councils, political legacy and financial position all affect the likelihood of firms issuing CSR reports. Secondly, we focus on the symbolic nature of CSR reporting and how variance in the risk of stakeholder monitoring through channels such as bureaucratic embeddedness and local government development influences the extent to which CSR communications are decoupled from substantive CSR activities. Our database includes all CSR reports issued by the population of approximately 1600 Chinese publicly listed firms during the period of 2006-2009. Our hypotheses are generally supported. The socio-political perspective we develop contributes to organizational theory by showing how different types of stakeholder connections expose companies to different types of legitimacy pressures, and how variation in decoupling strategies may be identified by unpacking the extent of stakeholder monitoring risk.

Speaker’s Biographical Sketch:

Chris Marquis is an Associate Professor in the Organizational Behavior unit at the Harvard Business School and is affiliated with the HBS Social Enterprise Initiative and Harvard University Hauser Center for Non-Profit Organizations. He teaches the MBA elective Social Entrepreneurship in the Business Sector and a doctoral course on Organizational Theory. He has previously taught Leadership and Organizational Behavior (LEAD) in the required MBA curriculum, and in a number of executive education programs.

Professor Marquis’ current research is focused on how business can have a positive impact on society and in particular how historical processes and community relations have shaped firms' and entrepreneurs’ social strategies and activities. He is currently pursuing several streams of research. The first seeks to assess how organizations can be designed to maximize both business and social value. Questions that drive his inquires include: How can companies grow in reach and profit, while staying true to a social mission and maintaining their quality of services or products? And, should social entrepreneurs focus their efforts on leading change of the broader system in which they operate, or should they focus on achieving impact within the existing system? The second explores how environmental sustainability initiatives have developed in China. This research investigates questions such as: What are the implications of transitioning to greener technology when government and business are structurally intertwined? These research projects build on Marquis’ earlier work that analyzed how firm behavior is shaped by broader contexts such as embeddedness in geographic communities and how environmental conditions during founding periods leave a lasting imprint on organizations. In particular, Marquis’ prior research examined the effects of these processes in the contexts of community-based social networks and the evolution of the US banking industry.

Marquis’ research has won a number of national awards including the 2006 William H. Newman Award for best dissertation across the entire the Academy of Management, the 2006 Louis R. Pondy award best dissertation in organizational theory from the Academy of Management, the 2003 James D. Thompson Award for best graduate student paper from the American Sociological Association and the 2005 State Farm Doctoral Dissertation Award. He was a finalist for the 2010 Aspen Institute Faculty Pioneer Award, a runner-up in the Academy of Management's Best Published Paper in Organization and Management Theory in 2009 and a finalist in the 2004 INFORMS/Organization Science Dissertation Proposal Competition. He has published in Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, American Sociological Review, Journal of Management Inquiry, Organization Science, and Social Networks as well as a number of edited collections. He is a member of the editorial boards of Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science and Strategic Organization.

Marquis received a BA in History from Notre Dame, MA in History and MBA in Finance from Pitt, and MA and PhD in Sociology from Michigan. Prior to his academic career, he worked for 6 years in the financial services industry, most recently as Vice President and Technology Manager for a business unit of Bank One Corporation (now J.P. Morgan Chase).

Welcome to attend!