A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Corporate Social Responsibility Practices: America and China

This study examines the cross-cultural similarities and differences of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices between leading America companies and leading Chinese companies. It pays particular attention to the why, what, how and where of CSR practices and discovers how these companies manage and localize their efforts through the comparison of corporate websites. Utilizing corporate websites to perform a content analysis, fifty of the top American Fortune 500 businesses were analyzed. The results from the fifty American Fortune 500 companies were then compared to twenty-three top Chinese Fortune 50 companies. The codebook elements that were used to compare CSR practices between America and China revealed few similarities and many differences. Through analyzing corporate websites, the results of this study revealed that leading American companies are more advanced in recording and publicizing CSR efforts than leading Chinese companies.