International operations and sustainable development: Should national culture matter?

Abstract

As manufacturers around the world have seen an increasing number of opportunities to produce abroad and to source from low cost regions, they also have had to address growing pressure from non-governmental organizations, consumer groups and even the population in general regarding sustainable development. This paper examines the conjuncture of these two trends by assessing the linkage between national culture and corporate sustainable development practices in 55 countries. The results suggest that two of Hofstede's national culture dimensions are linked to a higher degree of sustainable practices by corporations. In particular, a nation's high degree of individualism and uncertainty avoidance were both related to green corporatism, environmental innovation, fair labor practices and corporate social involvement. The results provide managers with another tool in making decisions about offshoring, global sourcing and international production expansion. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.sustainable development , national culture , global sourcing , international operations ,

An Investigation of Global Reporting Initiative Performance Indicators in Corporate Sustainability Reports: Greek, Italian and Spanish Evidence

“…This substantial uniformity of disclosure might be produced by the socio-cultural homogeneity of these three countries [67,68] and by their legal homogeneity in terms of absence, as of the date of the analysis of the SRs, of a law that imposes on listed companies the preparation of an SR. The literature documents that socio-cultural and legal context can explain companies' sustainability approach [69,70].…”

Competitive Goals and Plant Investment in Environment and Safety Practices: Moderating Effect of National Culture

“…There have been some recent attempts to bridge this gap by either addressing broad issues of corporate responsibility (Vachon, 2009), or by targeting a specific area such as worker safety (Lorenzo et al, 2010, Mohamed et al, 2009. Several studies have also explored the role of personal, managerial and organizational values in environment and safety investment (Bansal, 2003, Wood, 1991, but few studies have more directly used national culture.…”

Sustainable Global Sourcing: A Systematic Literature Review and Bibliometric Analysis

“…Prior studies, regarding this aspect, are limited to purchasing managers or suppliers [49,70,109,152]. Future studies could explore this issue by conducting a comparative study of SGS between home countries and host country, since national cultures and local characteristics could influence both sustainable practice implementation and the way of responding to compliance [94,109]. Helin and Babri's (2015) [138] study was one of the first efforts in this respect and investigates the different ways of translating codes of conduct into different geographical contexts.…”

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