TY - JOUR
T1 - Stakeholder influence, government power, and new opportunities for Chinese Internet companies
T2 - A multilevel network analysis of cross-sector networks
AU - Li, Yiqi
AU - Yang, Aimei
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2022/9
Y1 - 2022/9
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - CSR
KW - Chinese Internet companies
KW - Cross-sector alliance networks
KW - Multilevel network analysis
KW - Stakeholder influence
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U2 - 10.1016/j.pubrev.2022.102197
DO - 10.1016/j.pubrev.2022.102197
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85129544376
SN - 0363-8111
VL - 48
JO - Public Relations Review
JF - Public Relations Review
IS - 3
M1 - 102197
ER -