Corporate social responsibility “glocalisation”: Evidence from the international construction business

Abstract

This paper aims (a) to enrich the corporate social responsibility (CSR) globalisation–localisation dyad (called “glocalisation”) by positioning it amid relevant theoretical discourses and (b) to map out CSR glocalisation patterns by focusing on international construction as a revealing business sector. It does so by triangulating field studies with content analyses of 68 international construction companies' (ICCs) CSR reports over 7 years (2011–2017) assisted by a text mining approach. By examining how categories of CSR issue are valued in different host countries, the research positions CSR glocalisation in a four‐quadrant grid model to illustrate their relationships. It is found that ICCs adopt glocalisation to strike a balance between CSR globalisation/standardisation and localisation/contextualisation to enhance the consistency and efficiency of their CSR strategies while maintaining responsiveness to the local environment. Demystification of the concept of CSR glocalisation will encourage further theoretical debate and practical applications of CSR and sustainable development in the international construction business.

Impact of perceived organizational support and green transformational leadership on sustainable organizational performance: a SEM approach

“…Similarly, in the trend on new research of CSR, for instance, a study explored CSR in international companies in the global context (Ye et al , 2020). Another study discovered a role of CSR in the better financial performance of food industries in the Asian context (Tsai and Mutuc, 2020), views and motives for CSR practices in the Ghanaian banking sector (Ofori et al , 2014).…”

Corporate Social Responsibility Development and Climate Change: Regional Evidence of China

“…Therefore, there is no clear evidence that companies' CSR activities could reduce carbon emissions, which is insufficient to support that more CSR would induce less carbon emissions, as suggested by a previous study [3]. For the control variables, GDP per capita significantly reduces carbon emissions, in accordance with a previous study [24], and a higher HDI also helps to reduce carbon emissions. Meanwhile, population has a mixed effect for different regions, which raises a potential research direction to assess how the difference in the economic development stages of regions impacts their carbon emissions.…”

“…Macroscopically, there is a positive correlation between the Human Development Index (HDI) of countries and the reduction in carbon emissions. Countries with a higher HDI such as the UK, Australia and Germany have stricter regulations, while those with a lower HDI do not [24]. However, though regulations and pressures from society positively ameliorate the problems of environmental protection, this achievement may be arguably at the expense of firm values [25].…”

Attitudes of employees in green companies regarding CSR communication

“…Auto coding, using NVivo and similar software, is a methodology that has been used to analyze a variety of related documents, literature reviews and interviews: For example, CSR reports (Cook et al, 2018;Huhmann and Conner, 2014;Lane and Devin, 2018;Russo-Spena et al, 2018;Ye et al, 2019); ethics (Leonidou and Skarmeas, 2017;Lock and Seele, 2015); and annual reports (Abed et al, 2016). There is also sector-specific research of CSR reporting.…”