Prioritizing critical success factors for sustainable energy sector in China: A DEMATEL approach

Abstract

Sustainable strategies like Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) have become an essential requirement for the energy sector to be practiced across their business activities. Many studies addressed CSR-related strategies but did not examine their critical success factors (CSFs) on regional bases. Therefore, the world's largest energy consumer, China, has been chosen to analyze the critical success factors of corporate social responsibility specific to energy sector. In this study, literature is reviewed for the collection of CSFs, validated and evaluated by experts and case industrial managers situated in China. For the analysis and visualization of influential CSFs to promote CSR, ‘Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory’ (DEMATEL) method was used in this study. The paper highlights that energy companies of China should focus on the most influential success factors for CSR implementation by categorizing CSFs into cause and effect group. The authors' best knowledge is the first study that examined the CSFs related to the energy sector on a regional basis. This study provides initial insights into the strategic process of CSR implementation. This work proposes a decision framework to assist managers of the Chinese energy sector to further extend strong roots in the CSR implementation.

Keywords

• DEMATEL
• Corporate social responsibility
• Critical success factors
• Energy sector
• China