英国留学生论文：Corporate Governance and Social Responsibili

　　This paper argues that key differences between the UK and the US in the importance ascribedto a company’s social responsibilities (CSR) re?ect differences in the corporate governancearrangements in these two countries. Speci?cally, we analyse the role of a salient type of ownerin the UK and the US, institutional investors, in emphasising ?rm-level CSR actions. Weexplore differences between institutional investors in the UK and the US concerning CSR,and draw on a model of instrumental, relational and moral motives to explore whyinstitutional investors in the UK are becoming concerned with ?rms’ social and environmentalactions. We conclude with some suggestions for future research in this area.
　　Introduction
　　cholars of corporate governance understand the world to be divided into twosystems, the Anglo-American shareholder system and the Continental European/Japanesestakeholder system. They have used thesecontrasting models to explain differences in?nance, ownership, labour relations and therole of the market for corporate control amongthe varieties of capitalism, as well as to explorethe possibilities of convergence or continueddivergence in corporate governance practices.In such highly stylised portraits, primaryattention is given to the ways in which eachsystem differs from the other, often using anunder-socialised view of the institutional andsocio-political context in which ?rms operate(Aguilera and Jackson, 2003). Less attentionhas been paid to differences in corporate governance within the “Anglo-American” system,though a number of recent studies have begunto explore those differences (Miller, 2000; Tomsand Wright, 2005; Williams and Conley, 2005),or to country-by-country differences withinthe Continental European system, althoughSwork has recently begun there as well(Federowicz and Aguilera, 2003; Aguilera,2005; Clark and Wojcik, 2005; Gospel andPendleton, 2005).
　　As stated by Toms and Wright, “it is a pity”that US/UK comparative work has beenneglected, since “although there are importantsimilarities [between the US and the UK cor-porate governance systems], there are also dif-ferences that have not been fully investigated”(2005, 267). Our paper undertakes one suchinvestigation. We examine some salient dif-ferences between the corporate governancearrangements in the US and the UK by evalu-ating differing institutional investor composi-tion and modes of action in the two markets,and by exploring the implications of suchdifferences for the varying importance of“corporate responsibility” issues within thetwo countries. In so doing, we rely upon ourprior comparative corporate governance work(Aguilera and Jackson, 2003; Williams andConley, 2005), as well as our multi-level theo-retical model of why different actors presscompanies to consider social responsibilityissues, here applied to institutional investors (Aguilera, Rupp, Williams, and Ganapathi,forthcoming).