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This article examines patient group advocacy across China. Drawing on a two-year ethnographic study of rare-disease patient groups, this article documents how patient groups have developed both locally based patient clusters and translocal networks to spread their advocacy across China. Patient groups' decentered, locally based patient clusters enable parochial advocacy targeting local authorities, typically with the goal of obtaining subsidies for specialized medical treatment. Translocal networks of patient groups have provided an organizational foundation for interregional information exchange. Mutual-aid patient groups harness such networks to advocate for government support across China at a lower organizational and political cost, minimizing the risk of government repression. The article advances our understanding of cross-regional patient advocacy and changing state-society relations in China. (China J/GIGA)

The Chinese government created specialty mediation committees to settle profession-based disputes, including medical disputes, in the 2010s. Using data on medical dispute resolution collected from fieldwork from 2016 to 2017, this article examines why (and how) mediators have addressed social grievances. It argues that the specialisation of mediation institutions and a series of politicisation measures, as well as affective and bargaining strategies employed in the mediation process, have jointly led to a high mediation rate. The findings also reveal that several factors could shape mediators' strategies, including timing, disputes that may lead to group petitioning, and disputants' level of bargaining power. This article enhances our understanding of the advent of the specialty mediation committees from an institutional perspective and enriches our knowledge of the mediators' role in the process. (China / GIGA)

ABSTRACTThis study combines internal and external perspectives to examine the antecedents of corporate social and environmental irresponsibility. In terms of internal factors, we focus on the extent to which a firm incorporates corporate social responsibility (CSR) into its business strategy and the level of firm‐specific R&D investment. With respect to external factors, we focus on market cost pressure and local government corruption. We developed hypotheses and tested them using original survey data of 295 Chinese firms covering four years. The results show that incorporating corporate social responsibility into business strategy and investing in R&D both predict less socially or environmentally irresponsible behavior by a firm. In contrast, cost pressures and government corruption correlate with an increased likelihood of irresponsible social and environmental behavior by firms. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment