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

Abstract

The growing global prominence of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) makes it increasingly important to recognize that multinational corporations (MNCs) can be subject to conflicting human rights pressures at the transnational, national, and intra-organizational levels. We here construct a three-level framework that maps these various human rights pressures, and use it to identify and analyse the human rights that Chinese SOEs report concern with. Our analysis suggests that whilst 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 upon only some human rights – i.e. economic, social and cultural rights – within their national and intra-organizational environment. We conclude by identifying a number of ways in which our conceptual framework and empirical findings can inform future research.

Keywords: Chinese State-Owned Enterprises, Global Governance, Human Rights, Multinational Corporations