The Living Conditions of Ant Clans and the Enterprises' Social Responsibilities in the Process of China's Economic Modernization

The Lost “Ants”

-- The Living Conditions of Ant Clans and the Enterprises' Social Responsibilities in the Process of China's Economic Modernization

Chang Le

Zhang Mengran

Abstract

As the number of ant clans--the gathering group of college graduates with low incomes--increases rapidly in recent years in China’s labor market, corporate social responsibility has become considerably significant and aroused wide public concern. This paper is mainly focused on interpreting and analyzing the reasons that causes this phenomenon and the status quo of ant clans, thereby putting forward constructive measures that companies should follow in order to fulfill their corporate social responsibility.

Key words: And clans, Enterprises，Corporate social responsibility

Contents

Abstract        

1        Introduction        

2        Current Situations of Ant Clans        

3        Reasons Causing This Phenomenon        

3.1.        From the microscopic point of view        

3.2.        From the macroscopic point of view        

4        Enterprises’ Corporate Social Responsibility Towards Ant Clans        

4.1        Paying for the housing provident fund        

4.2        Buying social insurance for employees        

4.3        Offering proper wages        

4.4        Expanding the overseas market        

4.5        Providing vocational training and new recruitment        

4.6        Providing mental cares        

4.7        Transforming the economic growth methods        

4.8        Others        

5        Benefits Brought to Enterprises        

6        Conclusion        

7        Bibliography        

1. Introduction

In contemporary society, there exists such a group of laborers: they are mostly college graduates with age between 22 and 29, dwelling with many other peers in the villages around the city; the majority of these laborers have no access to any social insurances and have never signed a formal labor contract with their employers; they mainly engage in temporary work with an average monthly income of no more than 2000 yuan. They are a special group gradually appears in big cities over the recent years--the “ant clans”（in Chinese “yizu”）. Though these ant clans have a large population of more than one hundred million, they fail to arouse much social attention. As the exotic floating population becomes the subject of concern in the news media and literature and also the mainstream of academic discourse and focus, this little-known group, however, is buried in those popularly concerned hot groups like “young peasant workers” and ” school drifting groups”. They are not included in the management system of government or any social organizations and rarely appear in the journalists’ fields of vision.

We have been thinking: What companies can and should do to really help these ant clans get over the current difficulties? Are they socially responsible for this circumstance? The answer is beyond doubt, even though a great number of companies do not realize what corporate social responsibility really means. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. CSR policy functions as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby business monitors and ensures its active compliance with the spirit of the law, ethical standards, and international norms. In China, however, most companies have weak senses of social responsibility. Seen from the world’s top five hundred enterprises concerning corporate social responsibility: Petro China and State Power, though considered as gurus of China's large enterprises, rank last but one and two respectively. Great contributions as they made to the society, China’s big businesses still cannot compare with those world-famous internationalized enterprises. Moreover, those state-owned enterprises, which are supposed to shoulder greater social responsibility, fail to match the public expectation and are often confronted with constant complaints in society.

During the business process, companies, especially when making decisions, are obliged to give due consideration to the interests of other groups of people closely related to the behavior of the enterprises, in addition to the interests of investors and shareholders or profit maximization. Just as B.C.Forbes, the founder and the editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine once said: “The purpose of commerce is to create well-being and not merely the accumulation of wealth.” However, manifestation of corporate social responsibility is manifold, and the backgrounds of laborers also vary from person to person. In this essay we have chosen a specific group--ant clans, and by analyzing causes of their status quo as well as the companies’ corporate social responsibilities towards them, our understanding of this issue will be sound and thorough, thus meeting and intrinsic requirement of socialist market economy and making China’s participation in international competition more effectively in the current trend.