Ownership Reduction in State-Owned Enterprises and Corporate Social Responsibility: Perspective from Secondary Privatization in China

Farman Ullah Khan, Junrui Zhang, Muhammad Usman, Alina Badulescu and Muhammad Safdar Sial
Additional contact information
Farman Ullah Khan: School of Management, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710000, China
Junrui Zhang: School of Management, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710000, China
Muhammad Usman: Division of Computational Mathematics and Engineering, Institute for Computational Science, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City 700000, Vietnam
Muhammad Safdar Sial: Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Islamabad 44000, Pakistan, safdarsial@comsats.edu.pk

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-13

Abstract: As an emerging economy, China modernized its economy via split-share structure reform. This reform changed the nature of ownership in state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Following this reform, we investigated the research question concerning how reductions in state ownership affect the corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance of listed firms. This study tests the hypotheses using data of Chinese listed firms between 2010 and 2015. Applying multiple regressions, we found a negative association between state reductions and CSR performance. We contribute to the existing literature by providing empirical evidence that those firms which reduce state holdings are not taking CSR activities seriously. Our study also sheds light on the worthiness and prominent status of large state owners of SOEs, as they are more likely to engage in social activities. This study provides fruitful implications for policy-makers and practitioners about state holdings, which may either hinder or enhance the corporate social performance.

Keywords: state ownership; state ownership reductions; stakeholder salience; corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/4/1008/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/4/1008/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:4:p:1008-:d:206232

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().