PhD Defence: Ruxi Wang
In her dissertation ‘Corporate Environmentalism in China’, ERIM’s Ruxi Wang reveals a comprehensive picture of how different external and internal forces jointly influence the corporate environmental strategies in the emerging economy of China.
Ruxi Wang defended her dissertation in the Senate Hall at Erasmus University Rotterdam on Thursday, 1 June 2017 at 11:30. Her supervisor was Prof. Pursey Heugens and her co-supervisor was Dr Frank Wijen. Other members of the Doctoral Committee were Prof. Joep Cornelissen (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Prof. Christopher Marquis (Cornell University), Dr Flore Bridoux (University of Amsterdam), Prof. Jordi Surroca (University of Grongingen), and Prof. Heli Wang (Singapore Management University)
About Ruxi Wang
Ruxi Wang received a Master degree in Applied Economics from Jinhe Center for Economic Research in 2012 and a Bachelor degree in Information Engineering from the School of Electronic and Information Engineering in 2009, both with honor, from Xi’an Jiaotong University, China. In 2012, she started her PhD at the Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, Rotterdam School of Management (RSM), working together with Professor Pursey Heugens and Associate Professor Frank Wijen. As part of her PhD trajectory, she was also a visiting scholar at Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, China.
Ruxi’s general research interests center around corporate social responsibility, political strategies, business groups, institutional theory, and China studies. Specifically, her Phd project investigates how the effectiveness of the environmental institution could be achieved in the context of China. She is also enthusiastic about how social interpretation and social pressure of political connection can affect corporate and individual behaviors in firms. She has expertise in mixed research methods including panel data analysis, content analysis, and case studies. Her studies have been presented at several international conferences including Academy of Management (AoM) Annual Meeting, European Group of Organizational Studies (EGOS) Colloquium, Alliance for Research in Corporate Sustainability (ARCS) Annual Conference, and Strategic Management Society (SMS) Annual Meeting, and are under review at top-tier journals.
Thesis Abstract
While the corporate environmentalism literature has shed light on how different stakeholders such as government, industry, and civil society can exert their influences on corporate environmentalism in developed economies, there is a dearth in both theories and empirics that explain (1) the complexity within a single constituent that could be impactful through multiple and sometimes contradictory expectations on firm behaviors, (2) the environmental strategies in the business group form that is prevalent in Asian and emerging economies, and (3) how the world’s largest emerging economy, China, is addressing its environmental problems in an almost utterly different context.
I build on corporate environmentalism, business group, and China studies literatures in an attempt to reveal a comprehensive picture of how different external and internal forces jointly influence the corporate environmental strategies in the emerging economy of China. Findings from two empirical studies exploring corporate environmental strategies in Chinese firms suggest that (1) the Chinese state has multiple faces at different levels in the political hierarchy, exerting non-concerted influences on corporate environmental practices, (2) there is heterogeneity among Chinese business group affiliates on environmental strategies caused by their pressure sensitive and pressure resistant attributes. The findings from this dissertation are not only applicable to China but also to other settings, including developed federal states where decentralized autonomy prevails as well as other emerging economies where the business group is an important economic force.
Photos: Chris Gorzeman / Capital Images
