Values and Corporate Social Responsibility Perceptions of Chinese University Students

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyse the effects of personal demographic factors on Chinese university students' values and perceptions of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) issues, and to identify the link between personal values and perceptions of CSR. The quantitative data consisted of 980 Chinese university students, and were collected by using a structured self-completion questionnaire. This study found that: 1) the importance of values education should be stressed, because we found that altruistic values associate negatively with perception of CSR, in contrast, egoistic values associate positively; 2) a CSR education programme should be designed accordingly to fit different student characteristics and needs such as gender and major differences; 3) values should be used as criteria for education and recruitment purposes, e.g., we found that female students represent more ethical values than male students, and have a more negative perception of the CSR performance; 4) the importance of environment performance should be recognised by Chinese corporations and policy-makers, because we found that Chinese corporations perform better in economic and social responsibilities than environmental responsibility. It provides an insight of the value structures of Chinese university students and the forces that shape ethical perceptions. It offers a comprehensive study of Chinese companies' CSR performance, and the results improve the awareness of scholars and managers in solving the current problems and developing their CSR performances further.

A Longitudinal Study of the Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Firm Performance in SMEs in Zambia

“…For both firm size and firm age, the natural logarithm was used to avoid skewed distributions [94,95]. We controlled for the entrepreneur's age because older people perceive CSR negatively [96] while young people are more probable to change their CSR perceptions [97]. Gender was included because it affects firm performance [98].…”

Relation Between Background Variables, Values and Corporate Social Responsibility

“…Wang and Juslin (2012) Concerns related to the concept of CSR grow as different dimensions are added to it, leading to a lack of consensus about findings; such concerns occupy an important place in the literature (Baden, Harwood, & Woodward, 2009;Fernando, 2010;Fernando & Sim, 2011;Ibrahim et al, 2006;Perrinjaquet et al, 2007;Pomering & Johnson, 2009). Business leaders have also manifested different views about the concept of CSR (Sprinkle & Mainess, 2010).…”

“…Although research on the relationship between social demographics and value structures can be found in the literature (Wang & Juslin, 2012), few studies have empirically analyzed the influence of the framework of human values on the perception of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the context of higher education (Rama, Ravenscroft, Wolcott, & Zlotkowski, 2000;Sobczak, Debucquet, & Havard, 2006;Weber, Weber, Sleeper, & Schneider, 2004;Weber & Glyptis, 2000;Wong, Long, & Elankumaran, 2010). Despite the scarcity of studies, consumer perception of CSR can be an important determinant of the success of CSR practices in any organization.…”

Determining Customer Satisfaction in the Real Estate Management Sector in Riga

“…Applying the concept of human values to the CSR context, prior studies have found that consumer awareness and evaluations of CSR actions are mainly determined by their own values (Basil & Weber, 2006;Golob, Lah, & Jančič, 2008;Wang & Juslin, 2012). Thus, it is plausible that consumer perception of a company's CSR quality and commitment is positively influenced when the consumers' personal values are congruent with the company's CSR goals or activities (Park et al, 2017).…”