Corporate social responsibility: Compliance cannot be understood in a one-sided way

In the past decade, from the central government to local governments, different departments and industries have formulated various "standards" related to corporate social responsibility, or actively introduced international corporate social responsibility evaluation "standards", striving to guide and regulate corporate behavior, assess and evaluate the performance of corporate social responsibility, and urge companies to actively assume social responsibility. The author believes that setting "standards" is conducive to guiding corporate social responsibility actions, improving the standardized requirements for fulfilling responsibilities, reducing the costs of social responsibility certification and audits, and helping companies to clarify action goals and establish action norms. However, it is undeniable that although the cost is reduced, it also simplifies the handling of social responsibility issues that vary greatly.
First, one of the basic connotations of corporate social responsibility is that enterprises participate in solving social problems as the main body. As a developing country, China faces social problems in environmental protection, employment, and labor rights protection, and its specific manifestations are different from those of other countries. If a unified set of "standards" is established and applied to enterprises of different industries, regions, and sizes, this "compliance" may ignore the response to social problems under specific conditions and the willingness and ability requirements of enterprises to fulfill their responsibilities. Second, the important principles of corporate social responsibility are voluntariness, self-discipline, and consciousness. From the experience of promoting international "standards" in my country in the past, exogenous mandatory social responsibility requirements may lead enterprises to be more committed to "compliance" efforts, rather than striving to promote substantial improvements in society through their own "reasonable" fulfillment actions. Third, there are duplications of projects and similar methods in the field of corporate social responsibility in my country, and the lack of social responsibility in some areas has caused the waste of "social responsibility resources". It is certain that this has a lot to do with the one-sided promotion of corporate "compliance" responsibility evaluation by relevant departments and institutions. For example, a European survey on the Chinese toy industry found that Chinese toy suppliers have developed a set of methods to deal with social responsibility audits, which can convince international customers that these companies have met their social responsibility requirements. However, toy manufacturers will teach their workers how to express themselves when responding to social responsibility audits and provide them with "standard" answers; factories also falsify wages, working hours, employment contracts, and temporarily close some non-compliant workshops when the audit party inspects the factory to achieve "compliance".
In addition, the love that enterprises give to social welfare is also a scarce resource. Chinese enterprises are facing multiple pressures such as expanding their own capital accumulation and coping with global market competition, but they still adhere to the concept of social responsibility and are willing to invest and contribute to social affairs. This kind of thinking and behavior itself deserves respect and cherishment from the whole society. The author calls on government departments, industry associations, and non-governmental organizations at all levels to make reasonable plans to guide the social responsibility behavior of enterprises to solve the core and key social problems in my country, so as to link corporate social responsibility with the public functions of the government. While encouraging enterprises to standardize the "standards" of social responsibility, they should also take into account the inherent differences of corporate groups and innovate social responsibility projects in combination with the specific social needs, characteristics and resource advantages of the location of the enterprise. Because only by giving enterprises the autonomy to choose and act in social responsibility projects, serving and obeying the accumulation of social capital, risk avoidance and long-term competitiveness of enterprises, can we effectively promote the full implementation of social responsibility in enterprises and realize the true unity of corporate interests and social interests.