Content-Type: text/html Investigating Corporate Social Responsibility INVESTIGATING CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF TOP CHINESE CORPORATE WEB PAGES Shu Peng, M.A., M.S. University of Louisiana at Lafayette Submitted to AEJMC's 2001 Annual Convention Public Relations Division Washington DV - August 2001 Direct correspondence to the author at: 1620 Carol Sue Ave. Apt. 508 Gretna, LA 70056 Home: 504-394-5019 Work: 504-679-5219 Email: [log in to unmask] INVESTIGATING CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF TOP CHINESE CORPORATE WEB PAGES INTRODUCTION The Internet has become a mass communication medium used by corporations for marketing, advertising, and public relations purposes. It has created a new type of public that seeks information more actively than those reached through traditional mass media such as television. The Internet is different from traditional mass media in that it is able to engage people in round-the-clock, direct, simultaneous, and interactive communication. It also provides corporations with more control over the information content and its dissemination. The Internet has changed the way corporations communicate and presents great opportunities, as well as new challenges, to public relations professionals. In short, the Internet rewrites the rules of public relations (Lawrence, 1996). As a new mass medium, the Internet serves as an effective tool for corporations to establish good will and build relationships. Corporations build good public images by reporting their corporate social responsibility on their Web sites. Fulfilling social responsibility has been regarded as the second bottom line of business since the 1980s and early 1990s (Cutlip et al., 1994). Yet publics, including investors, employees, communities, and other stakeholders, are interested in corporate socially responsible behaviors such as contributions and volunteer endeavors (Carroll, 1998). Business and investment literature shows that corporate social responsibility is also becoming increasingly important to investors (Badaracco, 1996). In addition, corporate social responsibility plays strongly into improving both corporate culture and image (Gill, 1999). However, studies have found that the public relations potential of the World Wide Web remains underutilized by many organizations and und erexamined by scholars (Kent and Taylor, 1998; Marken 1998; White & Raman, 1999). The Internet has also facilitated the globalization of the business world, as the World Wide Web brings closer businesses all over the world. Corporate Web pages serve as broad yet convenient windows not only to domestic publics but also to customers and investors abroad. This new trend urges corporations to know about, as well as expose, their organizations to the businesses outside their own country. Therefore, a study of non-U.S. business Web pages might be a good start toward harvesting benefits from the globalization trend. The present study is intended to investigate the current status of Web usage by large Chinese firms, especially the way these firms use their Web pages to support corporate social responsibility. China has an area of 9.6 million square kilometers, a population of 1.25 billion, and a history of five thousand years. As an emerging giant market, China offers great opportunities to businesses in and abroad. Since reforms were initiated in 1978, China's economy has enjoyed a high average growth rate of nine percent, and growth in foreign investment has been dynamic. In accordance with Chinese government's efforts in WTO accession, Chinese businesses have sped up their steps toward the globalization trend. They have realized that in order to compete with advanced foreign enterprises, they need to enhance their public image through improving their product and service quality and other social responsibility performances. The Chinese government is encouraging widespread Internet use to boost economic growth. In response to this, Chinese enterprises are also seeking to set up or upgrade their Web sites in order to enhance and foster trade. They have already realized the importance and effectiveness of the Internet as a new tool to propagate their products, services, and social responsibility performances. The Internet has existed in China since 1987. In recent years, Internet use has been surging at an amazing speed. Xinhua News Agency (2000) reported that the number of Internet users in China has skyrocketed to nearly nine million, which is a huge jump compared to the fact that there were only 620,000 Internet users in October 1997. Given its large population and fast-growing economy, China has the potential to become the biggest Internet, as well as telecommunications, market in the world. The Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia predicted that mainland China's online community will reach 20 million by the end of 2000, 45 million by the end of 2001, and 100 million within five years. It is important to note that Chinese social systems, economic background, customs, and values are very different from other nations, especially Western countries. Therefore, multinational corporations that have or will have markets in China should study Chinese culture as well as business. Through an analysis of the content of Chinese corporate Web pages, this study provides useful insights into how large Chinese corporations respond to the new technology, and how they use the Web to present themselves as socially responsible corporate citizens. It is a pilot study that contributes to a better understanding of globalization of the business world, international public relations, and multinational corporate social responsibility. RELATED LITERATURE REVIEW Corporate Social Responsibility In the literature, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is referred to in many other different terms, such as corporate social performance, corporate social responsiveness, business ethics, and in the late 1990s, corporate citizenship. The concept of corporate social responsibility has a long and varied history, but formal writing on social responsibility is largely a product of the 20th century (Carroll, 1999). According to Carroll (1999), the modern era of social responsibility began in the 1950s with Howard R. Bowen's book Social Responsibilities of the Businessman, which was published in 1953. Carroll considers Howard Bowen the "Father of Corporate Social Responsibility." The initial definition of social responsibility set forth by Bowen was "the obligations of businessmen to pursue those policies, to make those decisions, or to follow those lines of action which are desirable in terms of the objectives and values of our society" (as cited in Carroll, 1999, p. 268). Definitions of CSR began to proliferate in the 1970s. Notable definitional contributors include Davis, Steiner, Wells and Walton, Sethi, Preston and Post, Carroll, and Frederick. Among the scholars who have contributed to the definitions and theories of CSR, Frederick and Carroll hold particularly important positions. Frederick's four CSR models reflect the development of the definitions and theories of CSR. Frederick (1978/1994) labeled CSR1 as "corporate social responsibility," manifesting that business corporations have an obligation to work for social betterment. CSR1 is concerned with social obligations. The second model, CSR2, which Frederick labeled "corporate social responsiveness," refers to the capacity of a corporation to respond to pressures from the society, focusing on patterns of response to social pressures. Frederick (1986) developed his third model of corporate social responsibility, CSR3, which is labeled "corporate social rectitude," emphasizing moral correctness and adherence to central values. Frederick's CSR4 suggests that the study of corporate social responsibility should take social and natural science perspectives into account. Carroll (1979) also developed a definition of corporate social responsibility. He held that "the social responsibility of business encompasses the economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary expectations that society has of organizations at a given point in time" (p. 500). The economic component suggests that society expects business to produce goods and services and make a profit by selling them, while the legal component means that society also expects business to obey the law. Ethical responsibility refers to behaviors and ethical norms that society expects business to follow, which are beyond what is required by the law. Discretionary responsibility represents voluntary social roles that are not mandated by law and not expected by the society in an ethical sense, such as philanthropic contributions, training programs, and provision of day-care centers. In other words, a CSR firm should "strive to make a profit, obey the law, be ethical, and be a good corporate citizen" (p. 43). Carroll (1991) further explained that the four categories of CSR might be depicted as a "pyramid," with the economic category as the foundation on which all others rest. He reasoned that economic responsibility predicts the other three responsibilities because without it the others become "moot considerations" (p. 40). However, he emphasized that each responsibility is to be fulfilled at all times, not in a sequential fashion. Carroll (1998) also indicated that although the four faces of corporate citizenship are frequently in tension with one another, they are intimately related. Beyond the concept of corporate social responsibility, researchers also examined the specific behaviors when they investigate corporations on their social responsibility performances. The literature on the components of corporate social responsibility further illustrates researchers' understanding of corporate social responsibility. Sethi (1975) developed a three-state schema for classifying corporate behavior, which he labeled "corporate social performance." He argued that there are three states of corporate behavior: social obligation, which refers to proscriptive behaviors in response to market forces or legal constraints; social responsibility, which addresses prescriptive behaviors meeting social norms, values and expectations of performance; and social responsiveness, which refers to the anticipatory and preventive adaptation of corporate behavior to social needs. In Sethi's schema, he described eight dimensions of corporate behavior and the specific techniques of these dimensions in each state of social responsibility (see Table 1). He also pointed out that components of corporate social responsibility might vary greatly in different times, different nations, and different cultures because the evaluation of corporate social performance must be to a great extent culturally and temporally determined. Based on a study of the Committee for Economic Development, Edward Bernays (1975) listed 10 fields of corporate social responsibility activities: economic growth and efficiency, education, employment and training, civil rights and equal opportunity, urban renewal and development, pollution abatement, conservation and recreation, culture and the arts, medical care and government. He indicated that social responsibility is one prime area of activity of the public relations adviser. Wood (1991) developed a Corporate Social Performance Model (see Table 1) based on the Carroll (1979) model and a model developed by Wartick and Cochran (1985). In this model, corporate social responsibility is addressed at three levels: institutional, organizational and individual. At the institutional level, the principle of corporate social responsibility is the principle of legitimacy, which suggests that businesses that do not use in a responsible manner the power granted by society would tend to lose it in the long run. This view echoes Davis's statement that "the avoidance of social responsibility leads to gradual erosion of social power" (Davis, 1960, p. 73). The organizational principle is public responsibility, which emphasizes each firm's relationship to its own specific environment. At the individual level, the principle is managerial discretion, focusing on the options and opportunities available to individual actors within their organizational contexts. Esrock and Leichty (1998) hold that the central elements of social responsibility include adhering to fair and honest business practices, maintaining product safety and reliability, taking care of employees, and improving the environmental record. They analyzed the Web sites of a random sample of Fortune 500 companies. Their findings indicated that the main social responsibility issues addressed included community/civic involvement, ecology/environment, education, charity/foundations, children, health, volunteerism, diversity, arts, fair business practices/policies, worker safety, product safety, and quality of work life. More than half of the Web sites of these companies had items addressing community involvement, environmental concerns, and education. Based on the CEP's (Council on Economic Priorities) rating criteria on corporation social performance, Gill (1999) developed an eight-category measurement on corporate reporting of social responsibility issues in their annual reports and Web sites. The eight categories were the environment, women's advancement, minority advancement, charitable giving, community outreach, family benefits, workplace issues, and social disclosure. Using Carroll's (1979) classifications as a guideline, Maignan and Ferrell (2000) developed a framework to investigate specific CSR behaviors concerning three types of stakeholders, i.e., customers, employees, and community. Maignan and Ferrell constructed a number of indicators to measure the four faces of corporate citizenship (see Table 1). They pointed out that the indicators they employed might not be representative and might not be sufficient to provide an overall understanding of corporate citizenship, but their analysis provided a more specific picture of what corporations were doing or should be doing to fulfill their social responsibilities. Corporate Social Responsibility and Public Relations Public relations professionals have realized public relations and corporate social responsibility are not separate activities. Instead, they are intimately connected to each other. As corporate social responsibility affects a company's image and reputation and offers the opportunity to build good will, it is often managed by public relations practitioners for public relations ends and is seen as part of the public relations "portfolio." Consequently, public relations practitioners may be directly involved in the decision-making process and therefore partially responsible for corporate social responsibility activities (L'Etang, 1994). L'Etang also suggested that the public relations practitioners' role is to sponsor corporate social responsibility and contribute to policy, not just to publicize corporate social responsibility. Heath and Ryan (1989) believed that qualified public relations practitioners have an important role in developing ethical standards of corporate performance and can help top corporate executives by teaching them ethical standards. Judd (1989) had suggested that improving social responsibility might be a way to enhance the credibility of both practitioners and their organizations, and the status of public relations may improve if public relations practitioners play the role of the social conscience of their organization. He found that there was a significant positive relationship between public relations practitioners' recommending socially responsible actions and public relations practitioners' participating in policy decisions. Public relations and corporate social responsibility are intimately connected to each other. Public relations practitioners should not only commit to supporting their organizations to perform their social responsibilities, but also should use corporate social responsibility as a tool for public relations purposes. Research on Corporate Web Pages The World Wide Web has become an important tool for organizations to communicate their social responsibility, and corporations make use of the Web to present themselves as socially responsible citizens. The Internet has tremendous potential impact on individuals as well as organizations and has been subject to widespread research. Communications researchers have studied corporate Web pages to investigate corporate objectives for setting up Web pages. These researchers have primarily studied content features, commercial content, interactive communication strategies, issues management, agenda-setting strategies, and social responsibility reporting. Liu et al. (1997) studied the content of Web pages of top American corporations to investigate the current status of 1994 Fortune 500 company home pages and to identify the ways in which these companies have responded to Web technologies. The results of their study showed that 64.4 percent of Fortune 500 companies had Web pages. The researchers found that firms that had higher market performances, measured by revenue, were more likely to use Web sites to reach their customers. They also found that industries in transportation, communications, electric, gas, and sanitary services, retail trade, manufacturing, finance, insurance, and real estate, and services had a larger number and higher percentage of companies that have Web pages, while industries in construction and mining had a very small percentage of Web pages. Vattyam and Lubbers (1999) analyzed the home page features of a random sample of 1997 Fortune 500 companies and provided a profile of commercial use of the World Wide Web by these firms. Their results showed that 83 percent of the companies maintained Web sites under their corporate name. The main content or features of home pages were press releases, financial information, overview of the company, listings of products, and employment notices, which were present in almost 90 percent of the home pages. Their results also showed that most firms used the Web to provide information to gain goodwill and to provide stockholders with relevant information. In addition, the purpose of provision, which refers to the supply of information to gain good will and exposure, contained features that were traditionally associated with public relations activities. Esrock and Leichty (1998) analyzed a random sample of the Web pages of 1997 Fortune 500 companies to examine how large corporations are making use of the World Wide Web to present themselves as socially responsible corporate citizens and to promote their own policy positions. The authors identified 14 categories of content areas of social responsibility (see Table 1). The researchers found that 90 percent of the companies had a corporate Web site and 82 percent of the sites addressed at least one corporate social responsibility issue. The results suggested that the Internet had been accepted as an image-building public relations practice. They also found that the number of social responsibility items on Web sites was positively correlated with the size of an organization, but was unrelated to a company's ranking within its industry. The researchers concluded that Web pages were primarily utilized to disseminate corporate social responsibility information in much the same way as ot her traditional, one-way corporate communication vehicles and that the prominent model of corporate Web pages was top-down communication. Gill (1999) observed that many corporations are realizing now that public relations can help foster a strong, positive corporate culture, which helps build a good corporate image. Corporate social responsibility in turn improves both corporate culture and image. The author argued that social responsibility is an aspect of public relations. Corporations can use social responsibility to meet their goals and objectives, while helping society or communities meet their goals and objectives. Gill employed content analysis to examine the extent to which the corporate annual reports and Web sites of six corporations demonstrated social responsibility. The study was to determine whether the information on social responsibility was obvious or readily available in corporate annual reports and Web sites. The results showed that there was not enough evidence in the annual reports and Web sites of the six corporations to support a strong commitment to social responsibility as defined in the study. Research Questions and Hypotheses The literature review indicated that the World Wide Web has been accepted by corporations as a public relations tool to support corporate social responsibility activities. Yet, there is a lack of research on corporate Web usage for CSR ends. Thus social responsibility reporting is the focus of this study. As China is becoming an important player in the world market, Chinese businesses have committed efforts to promote their product and public images on the Internet. The literature suggests that U.S. large firms play a leading role in the use of information technology. We wonder if large Chinese firms also serve as leaders in the use of information technology and fully use the interactive features of the Internet to report their social responsibility activities. As a result, the following questions make up this work: 1. How many Top 100 mainland China companies have a Web site? 2. What type of industries do these companies represent? 3. What corporate social responsibility areas are addressed by Chinese top firms? These descriptive questions address the general situation of the Chinese business Web sites. The literature also leads to the question, "Are a company's market value, industry type, and Web page reports of corporate social responsibility activities related?" Three hypotheses are generated from the above questions (as there are expected differences between the market values of different Industry types, the hypothesis tests will control for industry type): H1: The larger the company within its industry, the more likely it has a Web site. Rationale: Previous work (Liu et al., 1997) found that for American companies there was a dependent relationship between the presence of a home page and revenue. The higher-revenue companies are more likely to have a Web site. In this study, the size of the companies is measured by stock market value. H2: The larger the company within its industry, the more corporate social responsibility areas it addresses on its Web pages. Rationale: Dalton and Kesner (1985) suggested that large organizations have enormous impact on the economy and the community and therefore are subject to closer scrutiny and call for greater social responsibility on the part of publics. Esrock and Leichty (1998) also suggested that larger entities are particularly concerned about their corporate reputation and they found that for American companies higher revenue organizations tend to include more social responsibility information and issues on their Web sites. Other studies (Eilbert & Parket, 1973; Trotman & Bradley, 1981) found there was a significant association between the amount of social responsibility information disclosed and the size of a company in terms of total assets and sales volume. H3: There are significant differences between business types and the number of corporate social responsibility areas addressed on company Web pages. Rationale: Fry et al. (1982) suggested that the companies with more contact with the general public tended to make more philanthropic gifts than firms with less public contact. According to Esrock and Leichty (1998), technology and environmentally oriented firms emphasized a greater number of no-harm issues, such as environment, worker safety and product safety, on their Web pages than either the financial or wholesale-retail firms. METHODOLOGY The method of content analysis was used to analyze the CSR areas addressed on Web pages of the top Chinese firms. The author and another trained coder conducted the coding, using the definitions discussed below. Because not all the Web pages have an English version, which is usually much simpler than the Chinese language version, only the Chinese language version was coded. Population and Sample The Web pages of the top 100 mainland Chinese firms were content analyzed. These companies are all state-owned enterprises and all sell stock in China. Yazhou Zhoukan, a Hong Kong magazine with a worldwide distribution of 98,447 copies, provided the top 100 list and summary information about the companies' locations, main business, market values, profits, and total assets. As the world's only international Chinese news weekly, Yazhou Zhoukan provides weekly coverage and analysis of the world's major events in politics, business and culture from a Chinese perspective, reflecting Chinese values, traditions and priorities. Every year since 1994, Yazhou Zhoukan has ranked the "Top 100 Listed Enterprises in mainland China" by their market value. The list is kind of a Chinese version of Fortune 500. The top 100 companies were ranked by market value of their class A common stock, which is issued only to Chinese citizens, as of June 30, 1999. Previous studies (Li, McLeod & Rogers, 1993; McLeod & Rogers, 1982) show that American top companies (Fortune 500) usually provide leadership in the use of information technology. As there is lack of research on Chinese companies, it is assumed in this study that top Chinese companies also serve as leaders among Chinese businesses in the use of information technology. It has to be noted that Fortune 500 companies are ranked by their revenue, not market value. Locating Web sites Two sources were used to locate and examine Web pages: Sohu (http://www.sohu.com.cn) and Yahoo! China (http://cn.Yahoo.com). These two sites are considered to have the best search engines and the richest data on various Chinese topics (Einhorn et al., 1999; Madden, 1999). Yahoo! China contains links to more than 40,000 Chinese-language Web sites (Hanley, 1999). A searchable database of each firm's name list and Web site and email address is available on Sohu's China Listed Companies at http://www.listcom.com.cn. The search engine can search a company by its stock number or the company's name. This site also provides a direct link to those companies that have a Web site. For those companies that were not linked to the Sohu site, a search was conducted using the search engine on Yahoo! China. The initial data were collected and validated between June 10, 2000, and August 10, 2000, by searching both Sohu and Yahoo! China on a company name search. Pilot Study A pilot study was conducted on May 7, 2000. Five randomly selected Web sites were coded. Most of the content in these sites was used for marketing and investor relationships. None of the five sites addressed worker safety. However, some of them did address product and service quality, which is a great concern in China. One site addressed "children" as well as "the elderly." This reflects an important social value in China: Respect the elderly and take care of the young. Mengzi, a famous ancient Chinese philosopher, advocated respecting the elderly and loving the young not only in your own family but also in the families of others. This value was, and is still now, the model followed by the Chinese people. As a result, a new item "elderly" was added to the corporate social responsibility area categories of previous authors. Industry Types China might categorize industry type in a different way from the United States. However, an American category framework was used because it is easier for American readers to understand and permits comparison with prior studies of U.S. businesses. The categories of industry types and definitions (see Appendix 1) were adopted from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of the U.S. Department of Labor (http://www.osha.gov/cgi-bin/sic/sicser5). During the tests of the hypotheses, the industry types were collapsed into two groups, manufacturing and non-manufacturing, due to the overwhelming number of cases (63%) in the category of manufacturing. Market Value As noted, the top 100 companies in mainland China were ranked by the market value of their class A common stock as of June 30, 1999. The market value was reported in U.S. dollars. The information was from Yazhou Zhoukan, which listed the market value both in Chinese RMB and U.S. dollars. The publication explained that the U.S. value was calculated according to the exchange rate on June 30, 1999. As mentioned, Yazhou Zhoukan is a Chinese version of Fortune 500. The China National Information Center and China Economic Information Network (Hong Kong) Co. Ltd. helped Yazhou Zhoukan collect and compute the data. During the tests of the hypotheses, the top 100 firms were divided into three categories based on their market value as of June 30, 1999: above $345 million, between $270 and $345 million, and below $270 million. As the market values of most of these companies were very close, the sample was simply divided into three groups by nearly equal numbers of companies (33, 34, 33). Initial Data Coding The coding was conducted between June 10, 2000, and August 10, 2000. Once the Web site was located, the features in the coding scheme were searched for on the homepage and on all the pages within the initial URL that could be reached through links off the homepage. However, if a corporation had a link to a subsidiary and the first portion of the URL for that entity was different from the parent firm, the subsidiary's page was not included in the analysis. Data on the top 100 mainland Chinese companies were coded into several categories. Only the Chinese language version was coded because the English version usually contained much less information and not all the Web pages had an English version. The researcher and the other trained coder are native speakers of Chinese and also have reliable English-Chinese and Chinese-English dictionaries. Because the corporate Web usage changes rapidly and it was hard for the two coders to code the same Web page at exactly the same time, the auth or first recorded the content features on a form (see Appendix 3); then both coders coded them into the respective categories. Reliability Coding within each CSR category was tested individually for reliability, using SPSS Interclass Correlation Coefficients tests. The inter-rater correlations ranged from .78 to 1.0. The average of all the correlations was highly reliable (.95 with 95% confidence), suggesting that the coding scheme is reliable and the definitions are very clear. Corporate Social Responsibility Areas The 14 corporate social responsibility areas identified by Esrock and Leichty (1998) were used as a guideline. Their categories are relatively recent, comprehensive, and appropriately specific for coding in this study. The author contacted both Esrock and Leichty, asking for their definitions of the categories. Unfortunately, they don't have written definitions. Therefore, the author adapted their category labels and through testing developed her own definitions for each category. The definitions of the CSR areas that were used to measure the Web pages in this study are listed in Table 2. As noted above, one additional unit "elderly" was added to the categories based on the result of the pilot study. When the researcher was recording the content features, she found many corporations supported national or regional sports, which is a very common phenomenon in China. Therefore, a category of Sports was added. Although China is a multi-ethnic country, these different ethnic groups have harmoniously lived together in China for thousands of years. There is not such an issue of "diversity" as in the United States, and the Chinese Web pages do not refer to diversity. As a result, the category of Diversity identified in Esrock & Leichty's (1998) study was omitted. (Table 2 is about here) The original list also included a Charity/Foundations category. During the coding, the researcher and her backup coder both felt that the category of Charity/Foundations had much overlap with many other categories, which included Community/Civic Involvement, Education, Children, Health, Elderly, Arts, and Sports. We decided to omit Charity/Foundations as a category and coded the items into other categories based on the ultimate goal or beneficiary of the activity or policy. Analysis Methods Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Descriptive statistics were used to calculate percentages of Web pages having each of the content features. The hypotheses were tested as follows. In all analyses, alpha = .05. Hypothesis 1: Hypothesis 1 stated that the larger the company, the more likely it has a Web site, controlling for industry type. This hypothesis was tested by a chi-square test for independence, with industry type as a control factor. fSl > fSm > fSs Hypothesis 2: Hypothesis 2 stated that the larger the company, the more corporate social responsibility areas it addresses on its Web pages, controlling for industry type. Because the Levene test of equality rejected the assumption that the two industry-type groups came from populations with the same variance, Hypothesis 2 was tested with a Pearson's correlation instead of an analysis of covariance. The two industry-type groups were tested separately. (s, csr > 0 Hypothesis 3: Hypothesis 3 stated that there are significant differences between business types and the number of corporate social responsibility areas addressed on company Web pages. Because the number of business types had been reduced to two. Hypothesis 3 was tested with an Independent-Samples t-test. (mfg ( (nonmfg RESULTS A total of 53 Web sites were found through the two search methods. Two firms had links to their sites, but there was no content because the sites were under construction. Eleven firms had their URL address listed in the database on www.sohu.com, but the sites were unavailable. Thirty four other companies did not maintain Web sites under their corporate name. Table 3 reports the types of industries the Yazhou Zhoukan Top 100 Chinese companies represented and descriptions of the firms with and without Web pages both by industry type and by proportion of firms with Web pages. Table 3. Types of Industries Represented by the Top 100 Chinese Companies (n=100) Type of industry Number of firms Proportion of firms with Web pages (n=53) Total With pages (within industry type) Manufacturing 63 38 (60.3%) 71.7% Finance, insurance & real estate 9 5 (55.6%) 9.4% Construction 4 2 (50%) 3.8% Wholesale trade 2 1 (50%) 1.9% Transportation, communications, electric, gas & sanitary services 17 6 (35.3%) 11.3 Agriculture, forestry, and fishing 4 1 (25%) 1.9% Nonclassifiable establishments 1 0 (0%) 0% Total 100 53 100% As Table 3 indicates, these 100 firms fall into the OSHA divisions A through K; sixty three were manufacturing firms, seventeen belonged to division E (transportation, communications, electric, gas, and sanitary services), nine were finance and real estate, four were construction and agriculture each, two wholesale trade and one comprehensive (nonclassifiable). Manufacturing had the greatest proportion of an industry with Web pages (60%) as well as the greatest proportion of the companies with Web pages overall (72%). Corporate Social Responsibility Areas Using the CSR categories and definitions discussed in the above sections, the Web sites were examined for addressed CSR areas. The author found that among the 53 companies that had Web sites, ù 42 percent included environmental issues, such as promoting environmentally friendly and/or energy-saving products, protecting the environment and saving energy during the manufacturing process, setting up environmental protection facilities, and other environmental protection activities. ù 38 percent reported the company's efforts in supporting education, including donating funds and/or materials to educational institutes, setting up scholarships or funds, maintaining schools and/or kindergartens, sponsoring educational activities, collaborating with academic institutes, and other supporting efforts. ù 38 percent of the sites revealed efforts intended to improve the quality of employees' work life. These efforts included providing training programs, setting up daycare centers, offering employee health exams, and organizing recreational activities such as sports games, parties, concerts, and tours. ù 26 percent had community/civic involvement activities that were intended to help improve the development of the country or the community where the company was located. ù 15 percent reported volunteer work to the community or the country. ù 13 percent expressed their concerns on fair business practices. ù Only a few sites reported their efforts in supporting arts (6 sites), worker safety (5 sites), sports (4 sites), children (4 sites), health (3 sites), product safety (3 sites), and the elderly (1 site). (Figure 1 is about here) The percentages of the CSR areas are presented in Figure 1 and the specific reports of the CSR activities are included in Appendix 2. The number of CSR areas addressed on each site ranged from 0 to 7. The average number of addressed CSR areas per site was 2.24. In manufacturing industries the average number was 2.65, and in non-manufacturing, 1.2. Hypothesis 1: Hypothesis 1 stated that the larger the company, the more likely it has a Web site, controlling for industry type. Hypothesis 1 was tested by a chi-square test for independence, with industry type as a control factor. Fifty eight percent of the 33 companies whose market value was above $345 million, 53 percent of the 34 companies whose market value was between $270 and $345 million, 49 percent of the 33 companies whose market value was below $270 million had a Web site. Figure 2 shows the percentages of Web site based on market value. ( Figure 2 is about here) Raw data indicated that higher market value companies were more likely to have a Web site, but the difference was not supported by the chi-square test for independence (p >.05). When industry type was controlled, the relationship between market value and Web presence was still not significant (see Table 4). However, manufacturing showed same pattern as the raw data and approached significance (p=.06), but was not significant at the .05 level. Further exploration of the data indicated that for manufacturing industries the largest companies had significantly more Web sites than the smallest companies. Table 4. Web Presence by Size, Controlling for Industry Type (n=100) With Web Pages x2 df p High Medium Low Total Manufacturing 79% 62% 44% 60% 5.5 2 .06 Non-manufacturing 29% 39% 60% 41% 2.4 2 .30 Whole group 58% 53% 49% 53% .55 2 .76 Hypothesis 2: Hypothesis 2 stated that the larger the company, the more corporate social responsibility areas it addresses on its Web pages, controlling for industry type. Hypothesis 2 was tested with a Pearson's correlation instead of an analysis of covariance. The two industry-type groups were tested separately. When industry type was not controlled, the correlation was not significant (r = .10, p = .25). The average number of CSR areas per site was 2.3 (see Table 5). When industry type was controlled (manufacturing and non-manufacturing were tested separately), the results of the Pearson's correlation tests were somewhat different. The results showed that within manufacturing industry, there was no significant relationship between the market value of the company and the number of corporate social responsibility areas addressed on the company's Web site (r = .03, p = .43). However, within non-manufacturing industries, there was a significant relationship between market value and number of CSR areas (r = .49, p = .03; see Table 5). Therefore, hypothesis 2 was only partially supported. Table 5. CSR Areas by Size, Controlling for Industry Type (n=53)