The production of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports has increased significantly over the past two decades. Does this mean that corporations who are reporting are more prepared or capable in dealing with social and environmental risks? Unfortunately, numerous examples and the recent corporate crises have shown that what companies report in terms of CSR does not necessarily translate into their practices.
Si Hao, who just successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation titled “Alleviating the Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting-Performance Inconsistency: A Tentative Proposal of the ‘Reflexive Law Plus’ Model” supervised by Professor Cristie Ford, used her research to pinpoint the problems with companies’ instrumental embracement of CSR. Her study, combining theoretical inquiries with empirical examination of the CSR reporting practices, provides a strong answer to why the current regulatory structure of CSR reporting is flawed.
Si Hao’s Ph.D. research of CSR is innovative because it straddles the conventional divide between law and corporate endogenous reform and seeks to connect both to the broader issues of regulation and governance. “The research was enlightened by the New Governance scholarship as well as the organizational learning literature,” Si Hao notes. In particular, she employs a law and regulation perspective to examine how the ubiquitous inconsistencies between CSR reporting and firms’ actual social and environmental performance can be alleviated.
Beyond her Ph.D. research, Si Hao has concluded a research project concerning corporate integrated reporting, which was awarded the prestigious Robert Bertram Doctoral Research Award. She was invited by Canadian Foundation for Governance Research to present her independent research report Corporate Integrated Reporting: More than a Reporting Revolution to a group of corporate directors and Institute of Corporate Directors (ICD) fellows. She is currently working on several writing projects and a review essay regarding a critical comment of mandated disclosure. Her main areas of interest are corporate governance, regulation and governance, environmental law, business law, and Chinese law.
Si Hao is the recipient of many prestigious fellowships and awards, including David L Vaughan QC Memorial Scholarship, Sir Quo-Wei Lee Fellowship, Li Pai Lin Memorial Graduate Scholarship, and the Law Foundation Fellowship. She has presented her work in progress in various academic occasions, such as the Ethics in Mining Symposium, Conference of Law and Society, and Academy of Legal Studies in Business Annual Meeting.
“My experience at UBC has been tremendously exciting,” she says, “I am grateful that I learned, grew and found my true talent and passion with the help and support of the faculty.”
