athletic footwear industry, China, corporate codes of conduct, corporate social responsibility, labor standards, Reebok, trade union, wages,

codes of conduct, corporate social responsibility, stakeholder, worker participation, China,

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -This paper seeks to address emerging practices of social enterprises (SEs) in China by exploring the institutional context, organisational features and legislative framework of this new phenomenon. Design/methodology/approach -The analysis is based on data drawn from secondary sources (laws and regulations, forum transcripts and news reports) and primary evidence (in-depth study of six SE cases). Findings -The various kinds of SEs are highly diversified in terms of social mission, organisational nature, legal form, and operational pattern; the institutional context is underdeveloped, providing growing but still limited financial, intellectual, technical, and human resources; although it allows increasing space for diversified development dynamics of SEs, the legislative system regulating SEs is still flawed in several vital ways. Research limitations/implications -This paper relies heavily on qualitative research methods to make a preliminary assessment of the development of China's SEs. Neither primary nor secondary data sources collected for this paper can be used to draw any general conclusion of statistical significance. Originality/value -The paper sheds light on the overall landscape of the recent development of SEs in China, providing a descriptive and normative foundation for cross-country comparative studies and quantitative, explanatory analysis.

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