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Re-imagining corporate community involvement during the COVID-19 pandemic: A case study of pharmaceutical companies in Guangdong province, China
Author(s)
Date Issued
2021
Journal
ISSN
0018-7259
Citation
Human Organization, 2021, vol. 80(4), pp. 302-310.
Type
Peer Reviewed Journal Article
Abstract
In this paper, we examine the participation of commercial firms in the fight against COVID-19 through the lens of Corporate Community Involvement (CCI). To display CCI as part of ethical and responsible corporate behavior, CCI studies often use a business-centered approach while paying less attention to the role of the state. Based on the stories of some pharmaceutical companies in Guangdong province joining China's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, we argue that the state may play a crucial role in shaping CCI activities and in making companies partner with the government under a state of emergency. We also point out that it is likely for these companies to translate their involvement in solving public health problems into profit-seeking opportunities. As such, this paper contributes to CCI studies by introducing a state-led approach and suggesting a form of "state-led and market-driven"CCI. Moreover, this study provides fresh information about the effects of corporations on social life and the practice of socially responsible corporate behavior in a state of public health emergency to anthropologists in the new subfields of anthropology of corporate social responsibility and anthropology of business corporations.
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