One Evolutionary Path or Many?

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One Evolutionary Path or Many?

• Corporate Social Responsibility in Comparative
  Perspective

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Time to move to the next level

• The CSR concept is hot in business and public
  policy circles and increasingly popular in
  academic fields such as Org. Theory and
  International Business.
• Business-and-society scholars can play a leading
  role in expanding understanding of CSR if we
  build on past work and work together to
  strengthen theoretical and empirical frameworks.
• How to do this?

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Creating a Research Network

• Gather a group of scholars from many countries
  willing to commit to the project
• Agree on a definition of CSR for empirical
  purposes, e.g.,
• narrow and broad scope
• different stakeholder sets
• Establish a data-gathering methodology and
  schedule

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National Styles of CSR

• Cross-sectional study, similar to the GLOBE
  project on leadership
• Surveys of 17,000 middle managers
• 951 organizations
• 62 societies
• 9 cultural dimensions from the literature and
  refined during the research

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INITIAL CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF FACTORS INFLUENCING
CSR BEHAVIORS

• Independent VariablesECONOMIC FACTORS
• Aggregate performance
• Economy type
• - Agricultural or Extractive
• Stage of Industrialization (Low, Medium, High)
• CULTURAL FACTORS
• - Power Distance
• Uncertainty Avoidance
• Humane Orientation
• Institutional Collectivism
• INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS
• - Role of government
• - Role of civil society

Mediating Variables INDUSTRY LEVEL - Sector
Type INDIVIDUAL LEVEL - Executive Values
Dependent Variables CSR BEHAVIORS - Type -
Scope - Frequency
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Evolutionary Paths to CSR

• Comparative longitudinal research of firms in a
  country or industry
• Role of history and culture
• Tease out pivotal events and persons
• Identify phases or stages of evolution
• With enough cases, look for patterns, e.g.,
• Is

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