Document Type
Article
Date
9-2022
Keywords
CSR, Stakeholder influence, Chinese Internet companies, Cross-sector alliance networks, Multilevel network analysis
Language
English
Disciplines
Organizational Communication
Description/Abstract
In recent decades, Chinese Internet companies have experienced exponential growth. As the Internet industry increasingly commends tremendous financial resources, they also face growing stakeholder expectations for corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions. One way through which Chinese Internet companies conduct CSR is by building cross-sectoral collaborations with nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and governmental agencies. Aiming to understand Internet companies’ strategic relationship building on CSR issues, the researchers drew from stakeholder influence theory and research on a network approach to stakeholder influence, and applied multilevel network analysis to model three networks related to Chinese Internet companies’ CSR collaborations. Specifically, we found that power and urgency are significant predictors of the structure of Internet companies’ cross-sector CSR alliance network. Organizations affiliated or endorsed by the central Chinese government are the most desirable CSR stakeholders. Additionally, the study also revealed that for Internet companies, devoting their attention to Internet-related social issues could increase their desirability as strategic stakeholders from other sectors and among Internet companies.
Recommended Citation
Li, Yiqi and Yang, Aimei, "Stakeholder influence, government power, and new opportunities for Chinese Internet companies: A multilevel network analysis of cross-sector networks" (2022). Communication Sciences and Disorders - All Scholarship. 15.
https://surface.syr.edu/csd/15
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
