Industry-academia-research cooperation promotes CSR development

Mr. Liu Chengbin, Executive Dean of HUST-GoldenBee CSR Research Institute, Associate Dean of Department of Sociology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, highly recognized positive contributions of the academia in promoting CSR development in China. 

Liu stressed that, we must give full play to the academia, transform the latest social responsibility theories into the basis of corporate management, promote more extensive exchanges between the academia and business, and extract the latest CSR practices for shaping the corresponding management theories. This is why we hold the seminar to share insights and make a difference.

In his opening remark, Mr. Filip Sandén, Acting Head of CSR Centre, Embassy of Sweden in Beijing said, “Sustainability is an important part of the Swedish society. The integration of sustainable development in the activities of higher education institutions has been on the agenda of Swedish education policy for a long time.”  

According to Filip, sustainability is considered to be an important part of future business management and future business models. Filip also mentioned, over 13 years of CSR cooperation with China has witnessed great developments of CSR in two countries. Knowledge and awareness about sustainability have been significantly raised among companies and the general public.

Mr. Yin Gefei, Chief Expert of GoldenBee ThinkTank, indicated that the GoldenBee ThinkTank has long been committed to promoting CSR in China. He hoped this seminar can play three critical roles, namely: an international academic exchange platform for social responsibility, a social responsibility exchange platform between the academia and business, and an influencer of social responsibility in the academia. 

The global CSR development is inseparable from the in-depth exchanges between the academic community and business. Mr. Yin wished that collaboration among the industries, universities and research institutes can be furthered to promote the development of social responsibility around the world.

During the keynote speeches, three scholars from China, Sweden and Japan shared CSR research and education under different social contexts.

Prof. Susanne Arvidsson, Associate professor in School of Economics and Management at Lund University, Sweden, shared how European society, especially European enterprises, can integrate performance evaluation on sustainable transformation into sustainable information sharing and financial management, so as to address environmental and social responsibility issues. 

She said that sustainable development is a very important topic in Swedish social values and expectations, so many enterprises try to transform and operate in a sustainable way, to enhance their competitiveness. By changing the structure of supply chain and value chain, enterprises can carry out financial transformation, establish sustainable financial model, and integrate sustainability into enterprise management. 

Prof. Tanimoto Kanji, Professor of Business and Society in School of Commerce, Waseda University, Japan shared the curriculum of CSR education in Japanese universities. By including sustainability and CSR, Japanese universities have integrated the concept of CSR into their overall curriculum planning, promoting the gradual transformation of business and CSR courses. 

He also mentioned the challenges faced by Japanese universities in sustainable development research. In the future, Japanese universities need to enhance their international perspective and interdisciplinary ability in the research.

By introducing the Vision 2050 issued by WBCSD, Prof. Cao Xuanwei, Associate Professor, Director of Centre for Responsible and Sustainable Business Education in International Business School Suzhou at XJTLU, shared the international discussion of business reform, social transformation, and the change of business school education, and analyzed the future enterprise transformation and change discussed in the mainstream value of management. 

In addition, based on the practice of Yili and other companies, he put forward feasible suggestions on how to strengthen CSR education in China. He emphasized that to cultivate talents with sustainable competitiveness in the future, university business schools should strengthen the CSR management education and “research in responsible business and management” to create a business education innovation ecosystem and promote the participation of schools in social governance. 

Mr. Yang Dian, deputy director of Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out that in terms of CSR model, the European CSR model is relational, while the Chinese CSR model is mandatory, and the Chinese government plays the role of facilitator in CSR development. He analyzed the relationship between CSR and common prosperity in China based on the internal distribution of enterprises, and took Lenovo as an example to interpret the problem of over-incentive system in companies.

Mr. Lei Ming, Professor of Guanghua School of Management and Dean of Institute on Rural Vitalization at Peking University, said that enterprises should play a greater role in promoting common prosperity. How to contribute to common prosperity has become the reflection of enterprises’ CSR fulfillment. By sharing CSR-related issues under common prosperity, he emphasized the symbiosis of corporate management and social development. Instead of taking profit as the only goal, enterprises should pay attention to people’s value in the production, and emphasize the contribution to the environment, consumers and society.

Mr. Zhao Yandong, Professor in School of Sociology and Population Studies, Renmin University of China, took elderly care enterprises as example and discussed how Chinese enterprises can carry out an ethically acceptable and socially recognized responsible innovation based on the CSR research and innovation. He called on enterprises to introduce new technologies into business model and take social responsibilities through innovative technological breakthroughs.

Ms. Qiao Zhenxing, Deputy Manager of Academic Department of Yakult (CHINA) Corporation, shared the establishment of the Yakult CSR system and its efforts in health, community and environment. Yakult promotes the CSR management system internally, raises employees' awareness of sustainability, and ensures the implementation of the CSR development goals and action plans. By releasing CSR report, Yakult responds to the expectations of stakeholders and improves the communication platform inside and outside the corporation, listens to more voices, and welcomes supervision and help from the society.

Mr. Zhu Dan, Manager of Branding Management in China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), shared CGN's public communication practices based on corporate cases. After years of effort on transparent communication, CGN has developed a systematic project covering eight themed activities for public communication and nuclear power science popularization based on experience and problems faced. The project has become a well-known brand activity recognized by the national nuclear industry.
 

The seminar has built a good and efficient communication platform for experts, scholars and enterprise representatives, which is of great significance for further improving CSR management system and promoting enterprises’ sustainability.

The seminar was hosted by GoldenBee Thinktank and CSR Committee of Chinese Sociological Society, and co-hosted by the Embassy of Sweden in Beijing and HUST-GoldenBee CSR Research Institute. Yakult (China) Corporation was the partner of the seminar.