Changes in Corporate Social Responsibility Efficiency in Chinese Food Industry Brought by COVID-19 Pandemic-A Study With the Super-Efficiency DEA-Malmquist-Tobit Model.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has brought about a significant and far-reaching impact on the world's business environment, corporations, and individuals. In the face of the general shortage of funds caused by the pandemic, assuming corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a problem for every enterprise manager. In the recent years, as corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a hot topic globally, many enterprises have chosen to incorporate social responsibility into their development strategies. The food industry is a basic industry related to people's livelihood, especially in the pandemic. Its social responsibility efficiency deserves our attention. This article takes 17 sample enterprises whose CSR performance between 2012 and 2020 in China and reports are above the industry level as examples. Constructing the super-efficiency data envelopment analysis (DEA)-Malmquist-Tobit model explores the social responsibility efficiency of these enterprises. It analyzes the pandemic's impact on CSR efficiency. The results show that COVID-19 has promoted the social responsibility efficiency of the sample enterprises in the food industry. Besides, the level of technical efficiency and technological progress in the food industry is relatively high. Still, most enterprises are below the industry's average level. Before the outbreak of the pandemic, the size of enterprises is the key factor affecting the efficiency of CSR. After then, the listing years of enterprises then become the key factor.

The Role of CSR Engagement in Customer-Company Identification and Behavioral Intention During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The global coronavirus pandemic has reignited a strategic debate among the business community of the necessity for corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement in the ever-dynamic social media. Considering the global economic downturn introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic, the present research is devoted to investigating whether CSR engagement in social media can help DiDi (a Chinese shared brand) at stake survive this overwhelming crisis. A theoretical model proposed to describe the hypothesized relationships was tested by a Structural Equation Modeling technique through the empirical online questionnaire. Through findings, we demonstrated that there was a positive relationship between CSR engagement of DiDi on WeChat, customer-company identification (C-C identification), and behavioral intention [purchase intention, brand loyalty, and e-word-of-mouth (eWOM)] of customers. With attention to psychological influence, our empirical statistics also evidenced the mediating role of C-C identification between CSR engagement and behavioral intention of customers. This study highlights the significant role of CSR engagement in a critical period theoretically and offers businesses more open innovation strategies to compete against the COVID-19 pandemic-induced market downturn.

Pandemic Uncertainty and Socially Responsible Investments.

This paper examines the effects of pandemic uncertainty on socially responsible investments. We use the overall corporate sustainability performance index in the Global-100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World dataset to measure socially responsible investments. The global pandemic uncertainty is also measured by the World Pandemic Uncertainty Index. We focus on the panel dataset from 2012 to 2020, and the results show that the World Pandemic Uncertainty Index is positively related to socially responsible investments. The main findings remain significant when we utilize various panel estimation techniques.

Integration of the Confucian Culture on Cross-Cultural Conflict Management: The Role of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Cross-culture conflict management is the major challenge for the Chinese enterprises going global along the Belt and Road Initiative. This study explores the feasibility of integrating the Confucian culture into cross-culture conflict management, and a special role is given to the COVID-19 pandemic. We combine the Confucian culture values and Hofstede's cultural dimension theory and adopt the questionnaire survey methods on the Chinese multinational enterprises' employees. The Cronbach's Alpha method is also deployed to test the reliability and validity of the data. We find the significant integration of the Confucian culture into cross-culture conflict management. Furthermore, 16 sub-values of the Confucian culture are suggested to mitigate the cross-culture conflicts in multinational enterprises effectively. The findings imply that Chinese enterprises should consider new strategies to manage the cross-culture conflicts, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.