Convergence Versus Divergence of CSR in Developing Countries: An Embedded Multi-Layered Institutional Lens

Abstract

corporate social responsibility (CSR), institutional theory, convergence, divergence, multinational corporations (MNCs), small and medium enterprises (SMEs), developing countries,

Multinational enterprises and the Sustainable Development Goals: An institutional approach to corporate engagement

“…Companies in South Africa, for instance, are required to contribute to the empowerment of previously disadvantaged people via Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) regulations, in order to help overcome the injustices of the apartheid regime (Arya & Bassi, 2011). And similar to regulative institutions, normative institutions that relate to professional or industrial societies, and the norms and values at the cultural-cognitive level, differ across countries (Husted & Allen, 2006;Jamali & Neville, 2011). Internationalisation therefore increases the number and diversity of stakeholder pressures on the firm (Brammer, Pavelin, & Porter, 2006;Sharfman, Shaft, & Tihanyi, 2004), which can be argued to both positively and negatively affect corporate responsiveness (e.g.…”

Corporate Social Responsibility in Challenging and Non-enabling Institutional Contexts: Do Institutional Voids matter?

“…Matten and Moon (2008); Campbell (2007), tends to be the yardstick for assessing the institutional conduciveness of CSR in non-western developing economies (e.g. Jamali and Neville, 2011)4 presence and implications of institutional voids 4 for CSR in these contexts. As such, it has become important to address this paucity of research given the increasing occurrence and impact of CSR activities pursued by local firms in such contexts; especially in Africa -a continent characterised by weak institutional arrangements and segmented business systems (Wood and Frynas, 2006), if assessed on the indices of the western varieties of capitalism.…”

“…At the organizational level, CSR has been found to be driven by a myriad of factors including organizational innovation (Asongu, 2007;Hull and Rothenberg, 2008;Porter and Kramer, 2002), culture (Bansal, 2003;Maon, Lindgreen, and Swaen, 2010;Aguinis and Glavas 2012), 8 size and ownership (Gallo and Christensen, 2011), financial strength (Orlitzky, Schmidt, and Rynes, 2003;Campbell, 2007) (Matten and Moon, 2008:407 -emphasis ours), hence the variation of CSR across countries and institutional contexts (Chapple and Moon, 2005;Campbell, 2007;Kim et al, 2013;Amaeshi and Amao, 2009;Jamali and Neville, 2011) 8 .…”

Revisiting the national corporate social responsibility index

“…that dynamically interact and collectively shape the evolutionary path of CSR in a country. Jamali and Neville (2011) introduce the dipolar of convergence vs. divergence in CSR and argue that while global convergence in explicit CSR is apparent, the CSR construct is molded by each country's historical, cultural, economic, and political context. Likewise, Gugler and Shi (2009) articulate the concept of a global North-South 'CSR divide' in order to shed light on gaps in terms of conceptualization and approaches adopted in CSR engagement which are evident between developed and less developed countries.…”