Identification of CSR Micro Social Initiatives within a Developed and Developing Country Context

Abstract

Increasingly, corporations focus on balancing the needs of society and the environment, against the need to make profit (Ilhen, Bartlett and May, 2011). By adopting corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices, a corporation signals that it not only pursues profits, but also recognizes universal human values (Lee and Lee, 2015). In addition, a legitimate business concern for multinational corporations (MNCs) is to establish legitimacy in multiple host environments and at the same time maintain a social license to operate (Arenas and Ayuso, 2016; Shah and Arjoon, 2015; Lee and Higgins, 2001) while also adapting to the country they are in (Kostova and Zaheer, 1999). The majority of CSR research has focused on macro CSR strategy as opposed to micro initiatives (Aksak and Duman, 2016; Bauman and Skitka, 2012; Aguinis and Glavas, 2012). CSR research has also focused more on the impact CSR has on‘external stakeholders’ (Bhattacharya and Sen 2004; Sen and Bhattacharya 2001; Lichtenstein et al., (2004) rather than employees (Fryzel and Seppala, 2016; Glavas and Godwin, 2013) and MNCs (Shah and Arjoon, 2015). There is also a need to examine these issues within an Eastern developing country context, as the majority of research on CSR to date, has arisen from research studies in a Western and developed country context (Rodrigo et al., 2016; Farooq et al., 2013, 2014; Visser, 2016, Chen and Miller, 2010; Chapple and Moon,2005; Ramasamy and Yeung, 2009; Ramasamy, Yeung, Au, 2010; Park et al., 2014; Crane et al., 2008). Although a number of studies have shown that CSR activities often leads to greater organizational performance in Western developed economies, research is yet to examine the strategic value of CSR to the organization and its employees in emerging economies (Rodrigo et al., 2016; Rettab, Brik, Mellahi, 2009; Brik et al., 2011; Visser, 2016), where there are still many challenges to CSR implementation (Smith, 2016).