Chinese State-Owned Enterprises and Human Rights: The Importance of National and Intra-Organizational Pressures

Whelan, Glen; Muthuri, Judy

Abstract

© 2015, © The Author(s) 2015. The growing global prominence of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) brings new dimensions to our understanding of multi-national corporations (MNCs) and human rights issues. This article constructs a three-level framework that enables the mapping of transnational, national, and intra-organizational human rights pressures, and uses this framework to identify and analyze the human rights that Chinese SOEs report concern with. The analysis provided suggests that while China’s most global SOEs are subject to transnational pressures to respect all human rights, such pressures appear outweighed by those encouraging them to concentrate on only some human rights (i.e., economic, social, and cultural rights) within their national and intra-organizational environment. The article concludes by identifying a number of ways in which our conceptual framework and empirical findings can inform future research.

Citation

Whelan, G., & Muthuri, J. (2017). Chinese State-Owned Enterprises and Human Rights: The Importance of National and Intra-Organizational Pressures. Business and Society, 56(5), 738-781. https://doi.org/10.1177/0007650315612399

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 15, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Nov 2, 2015
• Publication Date: May 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Jun 26, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 12, 2018
• Journal: Business and Society
• Print ISSN: 0007-6503
• Electronic ISSN: 1552-4205
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 56
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 738-781
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0007650315612399
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1122150
• Publisher URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0007650315612399