An exploratory study of corporate social and environmental responsibility
practices among apartment developers in China
Zhu, Q, Zhao, T., and Sarkis, J.
Journal of Green Building,
Vol. 6, No. 3, 181-196, 2011.
In China corporate
social and environmental responsibility (CSER) has gained increasing attention
within industry and government. Evidence
exists for significant attempts to promote CSER by the Chinese government. As a
critical ‘pillar’ industrial sector, urban residential apartment development has
been a major contributor to China’s national gross domestic product.
This industry has also profoundly influenced social and environmental
dimensions. Thus, apartment developers in
China
have felt increased pressures to implement CSER practices.
Little research has sought to investigate
CSER in this industry, whether in
China
or globally. The objective of this paper
is to empirically investigate, using a survey of 92 questionnaires from
apartment development companies, CSER practices in this industrial sector.
In the empirical analysis we find that CSER practices can be grouped into
basic, environmentally-related and extended practices.
We further compare these groupings of CSER practices among different
sizes of apartment developers using multivariate analysis of variance and
Scheffe multiple analysis tests. We also apply one-way analysis of variance and
t-tests for comparisons of CSER practices among apartment developers from
different cities and with different ownership structures. The results show that
apartment developers generally implement environmentally-related and extended
CSER practices at higher levels. Residential
apartment development is occurring in more developed cities, and thus apartment
developers in these cities face more pressures for CSER practices.
Joint ventures are more likely to implement environmentally-related CSER
practices. Research and managerial implications and future research directions
are also presented in this work.
Keywords: Environment, China, Corporate Social
Responsibility, Sustainability, Sustainable Supply Chain, Construction, Built
Environment, Green Building
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