超越规则的治理: 比较视角下的企业社会责任和政府角色

Governments around the world, including state agencies and subnational governments across China, are increasingly engaged in the development of new measures to promote corporate social responsibility as an explicit policy objective. While a broad, multi-disciplinary literature on various dimensions of CSR has developed, the role of the state in advancing CSR has not been well-examined. Adopting a comparative perspective, this article surveys the role of governments in the CSR space and identifies the benefits and challenges associated with state promotion of CSR, as well as the range of tools governments have adopted to advance it. This article then considers how this comparative experience can be adapted to the Chinese context. Drawing on the literature on corporate compliance and regulatory policy, this article observes that state policies toward CSR have a direct impact on the legitimacy of “traditional” regulatory tools. Governments that recognize this mutual influence of CSR policies and formal regulatory tools can encourage strategies that create consistent incentives for businesses operating in China to embrace responsible business practice.