Corporate social responsibility（CSR）refers to an enterprise’s management philosophy that at the same time of creating profits to its stakeholders it needs to assume responsibilities to its employees，customers，suppliers，community and society，including adhering to laws and regulations and business ethical principles，ensuring production safety and health，protecting labor benefits，protecting environments and natural resources，supporting philanthropy，and protecting disadvantaged groups，etc.CSR can be divided into four levels such as economic，legal，ethical and altruistic.Any business should be socially responsible，should not harm others and should create social benefits.In today’s relationshipera，an enterprise’s actively taking social responsibilities to build a harmonious relationship with stakeholders like employees，customers，supplies and competitors，community and society is becoming a key factor for maintaining its long-term competitiveness and sustainability.In other words，an enterprise that creates benefits to society is actually creating benefits to itself.It is necessary for mod ern businesses to integrate social responsibility targets into their ongoing business activities as a long-term strategy，which will ensure the long-term maximina tion of investors’benefits fundamentally.
Chinese commercial banks，especially the big 4 state-owned commercial banks，after their completion of shareholding reform，going public in both domestic and overseas markets and perfecting their corporate governance structures，tend to change their roles and business management goals from assuming the state’s designed social responsibilities to maximizing their own profits or investors’benefits.In fact，there are really some problems appearing in their socially responsible behaviors such as unwillingness to make student loans，unfair charge of banking fees，supporting polluting enterprises with loans，or controlling real estate prices，etc.In this circumstance，it is of great importance for commercial banks to learn how to balance the interests of investors and those of other stakeholders in order to maintain their competitiveness.In addition，with the globalization of world economy and the internationalization of these banks，their stakeholders are becoming more and more diversified and enlarged.Therefore，it is of great value to rethink and reflect their CSR issue.
Research on the evaluation criteria and formation mechanism for Chinese commercial banks is of realistic significance.Firstly，the issue of CSR concerns about the sustainability of the banks.For instance，in the domestic market this issue may be an indicator for their increasing or declining reputation and image as well as sales performance while in overseas markets it may be a trade barrier for them to enter a new market.Secondly，commercial banks’CSR connotation and criteria differ from those of common enterprises，however，today there is not such a statement of connotation and criteria for the banks so it deserves a specialized research on them.Thirdly，commercial banks’good performance in CSR is even more important in that they may drive or impact their borrowing customers to be socially responsible with their green lending policy，or they may directly impact the country’s economic prosperity or social stability with their strong financing power.
Through the literature review and reflection of domestic and foreign CSR theories and practices，and the empirical study of commercial banks’s current situation and problems in CSR management，and based on the conclusion of insti-tutional pressure analysis and case studies that“institutional arrangement is more influencial than strategic benefits for driving a business to establish a good value of CSR”，the paper puts forward a unique set of connotation and features for commercial banks’CSR，a unique set of criteria for evaluating their CSR performance，and a set of good mechanism for establishing their CSR cultural value.It is argured that due to the shortage of a complete internal and external corporate governance structure，in order to help Chinese commercial banks estab-lish a sound CSR value，the legislative department is suggested to restrain com-mercial banks’business behaviors by perfecting the relevant laws and regula-tions，the government is suggested to direct them by designing and enforcing the related economic and social polices，the guild or NGO is suggested to regulate them by establishing an industrial standard，and the commercial bank itself is suggested to control them by establishing a diversified inner governance structure and to strengthen them by building a healthy environment of CSR corporate culture.It could be said that the perfection of Chinese commecial banks’internal and external corporate governance structures plays a key role for the formation of their good CSR value and performance.
