Globalization and commitment in corporate social responsibility: Cross-national analyses of institutional and political-economy effect

• Main Authors: LIM, Alwyn, TSUTSUI, Kiyoteru
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2011
• Subjects: environmentalism; global and transnational sociology; human rights; world society approach; world-system theory; Political Economy; Political Science
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2480; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/3737/viewcontent/0003122411432701__1_.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This article examines why global corporate social responsibility (CSR) frameworks havegained popularity in the past decade, despite their uncertain costs and benefits, and how theyaffect adherents’ behavior. We focus on the two largest global frameworks—the United NationsGlobal Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative—to examine patterns of CSR adoption bygovernments and corporations. Drawing on institutional and political-economy theories, wedevelop a new analytic framework that focuses on four key environmental factors—globalinstitutional pressure, local receptivity, foreign economic penetration, and national economicsystem. We propose two arguments about the relationship between stated commitment andsubsequent action: decoupling due to lack of capacity and organized hypocrisy due to lack ofwill. Our cross-national time-series analyses show that global institutional pressure throughnongovernmental linkages encourages CSR adoption, but this pressure leads to ceremonialcommitment in developed countries and to substantive commitment in developing countries.Moreover, in developed countries, liberal economic policies increase ceremonial commitment,suggesting a pattern of organized hypocrisy whereby corporations in developed countriesmake discursive commitments without subsequent action. We also find that in developingcountries, short-term trade relations exert greater influence on corporate CSR behavior thando long-term investment transactions.