CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 The Overall Concept of Philanthropy and its Significance
Since human beings started social life, they have pursued the code of conduct of the relationship between people in addition to the needs of material life. People hope that in addition to compulsory laws and systems, there can be a moral code of mutual assistance and love between people on the spiritual level, so different concepts and doctrines have emerged. Once these concepts and doctrines are accepted, they will form a national cultural psychology, and then become a national cultural tradition. This kind of cultural tradition is the embryonic form of charity culture. It has been continuously
enriched and developed as it spreads. Therefore, there are more cultural factors in the connotation and extension of charity culture (Xu & Xie, 2014).
Charity culture can be divided into charity culture in broad sense and charity culture in narrow sense. In a broad sense, charity culture takes the spiritual culture of charity as its core, and consists of four concentric circles surrounded by system, behavior, and organizational culture. It includes four levels: 1) the concept of charity, that is, people’s reflection of charity phenomenon in their minds, whether they recognize the plight of disadvantaged groups, whether the evaluation of charity behavior is fair, whether the concept of charity is positive and healthy, etc. It is a moral concept and value system based on humanistic care and social responsibility to repay the society. It is the soft power of charity culture. 2) Charity system. It is the norms, rules and regulations that people must abide by in charitable behavior, which is the cornerstone and guarantee of the construction of charity culture, and the guarantee of the healthy and harmonious development of charity culture. 3) Charity behavior, that is, all members of the society, based on the principle of voluntariness and mutual benefit, donate money and goods to social groups in need of assistance through legal intermediaries. 4) Charity material culture, which is the superficial part of charity culture as well as an explicit culture. Charity culture in the narrow sense refers to the first meaning, namely people's concept of charity. It is the spiritual support of philanthropy, and its core is people-oriented values (Zuyan Guo, 2013).
In contrast, Western philanthropic culture promotes the rational spirit, that is,
"virtue is subordinate to knowledge, and emotion depends on reason." Without rational spirit, it is impossible to find the value orientation of Western philanthropic culture.
The spirit of reason guides the direction of western charity culture, promotes the benign interaction of various interests in western society, and ensures the orderly development of society. For example, the rich in the United States are unwilling to put their wealth at the disposal of the government through taxation, because the government is
inefficient and the possession of power might lead to abuse of power. Therefore, they are more willing to manage their wealth by themselves or the foundation in order to maximize the function of realizing public interest, fulfilling social responsibility, embodying social fairness and justice, and improving human life (Carl, 2010).
However, in the process of building Chinese philanthropic cultural undertakings, the biggest problem that is most lacking and needs to be solved is rationality, that is, the relative lack of rational spirit as the pillar of modernization.
Compared with Western countries, the traditional Chinese charity culture firstly relies on the government and the manifestation of love in catastrophes or extreme events. It is more perceptual. However, modern philanthropic culture should rise from the moral level to the social responsibility level. Especially when certain inequalities or contradictions occur, charity relies on rationality rather than temporary passion.
Nowadays, charity culture has become the dominant cultural trend of the times. It invisibly regulates people's behaviors, what should be done, what should not be done, what can be done, or what cannot be done (Xu & Xie, 2014).
With the rapid development of modern economy, the status of enterprises in social development has become increasingly obvious. Maynard and Mehrtens (1996) put forward the view that "the future belongs to enterprises, and the center of society will be enterprises" and he believes that companies should not only aim at profit, but also undertake social responsibility obligations. However, the realization of corporate social responsibilities largely depends on corporate philanthropy, and corporate philanthropy is bound to inject great power into the sustainable development of a country's philanthropy. Corporate philanthropy in both China and Western countries accounts for a very large proportion in the development of national philanthropy. Even in China, where philanthropy is much less developed than in Western countries, corporate philanthropy still accounts for 70% of total social donations. Therefore, promoting the cultivation of charity culture in the company, enhancing the charity
awareness of the company itself and its employees, creating a strong charity atmosphere, and further increasing the company's charitable donations lay a solid foundation for the establishment of modern charity and the realization of charity for everyone. It is urgent to promote the development of charity culture in corporate culture (Pan, 2011).
Shi (2017) believes that the entry of charity culture into enterprises has very important strategic implications, which are important for promoting harmonious development of society, improving the modernization of social governance, enhancing corporate responsibility, increasing corporate economic profits, and encouraging others to become charitable, which is of epochal significance. Specifically, it highlights three levels of society, enterprise and individual. First, in the social aspect, 1) It is conducive to promoting the construction of a harmonious society and improving the modernization of social governance. The entry of charity culture into the enterprise helps to concentrate social capital. The so-called social capital refers to the characteristics of social organizations, such as trust, norms and networks (Robert, 2004). Charity culture is conducive to fostering trust and cooperation between enterprises, between employees, and between enterprises and the society, and it helps the society realize the concept of win-win cooperation, accelerates the emergence of the social situation of charity for everyone, and finally form harmonious society. 2) It is conducive to the formation of a rational view of wealth in society and the elimination of the wealth view of "hostility to the rich". When the wealth gap between people becomes larger and larger, a psychological view of wealth inequality will easily appear.
To eliminate this abnormal social psychology, in addition to the country’s political and financial means, it is a wise move for charity culture to enter the enterprise. 3) Yu (2014) believes that real social governance should go beyond economic management and administrative management. The entry of charity culture into enterprises itself encourages enterprises to strengthen their own social roles, actively participate in social
governance, embody social subjectivity, and gradually become independent, so as to continuously strengthen social forces and provide impetus for the modernization of governance. Therefore, it can be said that the introduction of philanthropic culture into enterprises will help reduce the cost of social governance. Second, the introduction of charity culture into the company is conducive to enhancing the company's sense of social responsibility, establishing a good social image of the company, and increasing the company's economic profits (Rampal & Bawa, 2008). Third, the entry of charity culture into the enterprise is conducive to promoting the charity awareness of entrepreneurs and employees as well as influencing other members of the community to move towards charity. After the corporate philanthropic culture is transformed from the inside out into conscious actions, a beautiful landscape of charity will be formed in the society, which will affect others unconsciously and encourage more people to participate in charity, and at least it can reduce the occurrence of bad social phenomena (Liang, 1999).
2.2 Comparison between “Western philanthropy” and “Chinese