Corporate social responsibility practices by leading construction firms in China: a case study

Abstract

The implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices by construction firms have attracted various attentions in recent years owing to the environmental and social challenges confronted by the industry. This study investigates the CSR practices of five leading Chinese construction firms based on their annual CSR reports over a nine-year study period (2009–2017). Using content analysis, the specific objectives are to investigate: (i) the trends of their level of CSR practices implementation; and (ii) the factors influencing their CSR practices implementation. The results show that there are 79 CSR practices that can be classified into 32 sub-aspects, and 17 factors influencing their implementation of CSR practices. There are increasing trends of their CSR practices implementation levels over the study period. Although the evidence is suggestive that these trends would increase in the future, the implementation levels do vary across the five case firms. CSR communicating, biodiversity and ecology protection, and employees’ education and training are the top three sub-aspects of CSR practices prioritized by all case firms. The top three factors influencing their CSR practices implementation are award or certification, organizational culture, and governmental policy. The findings provide an useful insight for a better contextualization of CSR practices in the Chinese construction industry context, which has implications on the industry stakeholders’ attempts in driving firms’ implementation of CSR practices.