Short Bio
Dr. Xu Kang is a postdoctoral researcher whose work examines business and human rights, with particular attention to responsible business conduct and corporate human rights and environmental governance under geopolitics. His research investigates how firms, public authorities, and civil society actors interpret, negotiate, and implement human-rights and environmental expectations across diverse jurisdictions and global value chains. He holds a PhD in Sociology from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen–Nürnberg and a MSc in Sociology from Lund University.
Xu Kang’s work examines business and human rights, with particular attention to responsible business conduct and corporate human rights and environmental governance under geopolitics. His research investigates how firms, public authorities, and civil society actors interpret, negotiate, and implement human-rights and environmental expectations across diverse jurisdictions and global value chains. Empirically, his work is internationally oriented: while China remains a core anchor, he also studies European settings, including multinational corporations’ sustainability and human-rights governance and national human rights institutions’ engagement with business. In the global south, his research covers cross-sector partnerships and national human rights institutions’ engagement on business and human rights issues. His ongoing projects analyse human rights and environmental due diligence in global value chains (e.g., critical raw materials) across China and other global south contexts. His works include peer-reviewed journal articles on corporate social responsibility, corporate human-rights governance, and cross-sector collaboration that extend this agenda to cross-border and global governance challenges. Across these studies, he adopts an interdisciplinary approach spanning management studies, sociology, political science, and law.
- Kang, Xu (2026). Corporate human rights governance across borders: Insights from a German MNC operating in China. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal. https://doi.org/10.1108/SCM-06-2025-0592
- Kang, Xu (2025). Corporate social responsibility at the intersection of state and market: CSR interpretation in China. Business and Society Review, 130(2), 233–259. https://doi.org/10.1111/basr.70011
- Ernst Mach Research Fellowship at Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria’s Agency for Education and Internationalization (OeAD)
- Best PhD Paper Award at Rebalancing Democracy and Capitalism: A Critical Dialogue Conference (EU Horizon Project)
- EU Erasmus+ Traineeship (Civic Engagement and Values Education)