Social responsibility and SOE restructuring

SHEN Zhiyu (沈志渔)1, LIU Xingguo (刘兴国)1,2 and ZHOU Xiaohu (周小虎)2
1 Institute of Industrial Economics, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
2 School of Economic Management at the Nanjing University of Science and Technology

Editorial Note:China’s restructuring of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) has remained a hot spot that deserves social attention. For 30 years, China has achieved remarkable success in SOE restructuring. The special status of SOEs in China dictates that they should assume more social responsibilities and this has to a great extent affected SOE restructuring. In this article, the authors conduct an in-depth analysis of SOE restructuring from the unique perspective of corporate social responsibility (CSR), dividing the evolution of SOE social responsibility into three stages. They argue that based on corporate social responsibility, SOE managers should improve CSR systems and strengthen SOE social responsibility supervisory mechanisms. In respect to corporate governance models, SOEs should reform to strengthen corporate citizen governance. These studies provide invaluable insight into the furtherance of SOE restructuring in China.

I.Introduction
SOE restructuring is both the top priority of China’s economic restructuring and the focus of attention from economic theorists and regulators. The objective of SOE restructuring is to establish a modern enterprise system; the focus of reform is to change the traditional management model of SOEs and transform them from government-affiliated entities under the traditional planned economic system into market entities that undertake independent operation, assume sole responsibility for their profits or losses, pursue self-development and exercise self-constraints. The goals are to be realized by fundamentally changing property rights relationships, organizational forms, leadership systems, management systems and operation mechanisms that fail to meet the requirements for modern socialized mass production and market economy development. SOE restructuring has over three decades proceeded with the adjustment of the relationship between government and enterprise interests and with the setup of a new corporate organizational system.