scholarly journals Corporate social responsibility in times of the COVID-19 pandemic

Author(s):  
Beryl Philine Ter Haar

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused various disruptions in the production chains of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs). Among other disruptions there is a drop of product sales, often due to lock-down measures, which resulted in last-minute order cancellations, non-payment of the already purchased resources and already made products, and hence terminations of employment contracts. International organisations and nongovernmental organisations have called upon MNEs to take their corporate social responsibility (CSR) and honour the contracts. The aim of this article is to analyse to what extend this moral appeal is also a (quasi-)legal appeal following from international norms on CSR. After an assessment of the main labour law problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, an analysis follows on each of the identified problems. The conclusion of the analysis is that MNEs indeed are not only morally obliged to take their responsibility, but also based on the (quasi-)legal international CSR norms.

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 218-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Bason ◽  
Christos Anagnostopoulos

Purpose – Under growing public scrutiny of their behaviour, the vast majority of multinational enterprises (MNEs) have been undertaking significant investments through corporate social responsibility (CSR) in order to close legitimacy gaps. The purpose of this paper is to provide a descriptive account of the nature and scope of MNEs’ CSR programmes that have sport at their core. More specifically, the present study addresses the following questions. First, how do Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) 100 firms utilise sport as part of their CSR agendas? Second, how do different industries have different approaches to CSR through sport? And third, can the types of CSR through sport be classified? Design/methodology/approach – Centred on legitimacy theory and exploratory in nature, the study employed a content analysis method, and examined three types of document from each of the FTSE100 firms, namely, annual reports, annual reviews and CSR reports over the ten-year period from 2003 to 2012. In total, 1,473 documents were content analysed, thereby offering a sound representation of CSR disclosure of the FTSE100. Findings – From the analysis, three main streams emerged: “Philanthropy”, “Sponsorships” and “Personnel engagement” with the first showing the smallest growth compared with the other main streams. Findings show the general rise in CSR through sport, thereby demonstrating that the corporate world has practically acknowledged that the sporting context is a powerful vehicle for the employment of CSR. Originality/value – Previous empirical studies have sought to investigate CSR through sport, yet they have generally suffered from sampling limitations which have, in turn, rendered the drawing of reliable conclusions problematic. Particularly, the lack of an explicit focus on longitudinality is a typical limitation, meaning that no conclusions can be made regarding the trend. The study outlined in this paper offers the most comprehensive longitudinal study of CSR through sport to date, and thus contributes to the increasing volume of literature that examines the application of CSR in relation to the sport sector.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Selma Alves Dios ◽  
José Paulo Cosenza

This paper presents theoretical reflections whose purpose is to discuss the performance of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) and the fact that the impacts of their activities are the result of their management, despite their focus on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). For this purpose, we reviewed some of the main CSR concepts and reference documents to identify in which way this type of organization could be contributing to global inequality. Additionally, we describe the characteristics of the general orientation of CSR in these companies. The main results indicate that when moving to less developed countries, MNEs take advantage of the existing unequal conditions of income and precariousness of labor and environmental rules. The construction of a favorable image through CSR contributes to MNEs success, but at the cost of a complex and intense process of concentration of wealth and deepening of social inequality and poverty.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 4265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Zhang ◽  
Qianqian Shang ◽  
Chun Liu

This paper examines the spillover effects of foreign direct investment on corporate social responsibility of domestic firms, with a focus on the channel of labor mobility. With a corporate social responsibility measure based on corporate responsibility toward the environment, the public, the employees, and the consumers, we test whether and how foreign direct investment affects corporate social responsibility of Chinese firms. Our results show that firms run by entrepreneurs who have work experience and, especially, management experience in multinational enterprises investing in China conduct more corporate social responsibility activities compared with firms run by entrepreneurs without such experience. We further find that multinational enterprise management experience may enhance the entrepreneurial self-assessment of social status, broaden the international vision of entrepreneurs, and reduce the level of firm family control, which help increase firms’ uptake of corporate social responsibility activities. Our results suggest that foreign direct investment can serve as a vehicle for sustainable development, through the transfer of corporate social responsibility-related managerial knowledge from foreign to local firms.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 3675
Author(s):  
Holger Görg ◽  
Aoife Hanley ◽  
Adnan Seric

The disconnect between the lofty aspirations of firms claiming Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and their shortcomings in practice have caused some observers to question its usefulness. The fallout from events like the Rana Plaza catastrophe has highlighted some of these shortcomings—namely, deficiencies in how multinational enterprises (MNEs) transact with suppliers in developing countries. Specifically, our paper aims to investigate whether or not MNEs behave hypocritically by examining the alignment of CSR to business practices in MNE affiliates in developing countries. To answer this question, we apply standard ordinary least squares (OLS) techniques to data for over 1000 MNEs that claim to have a CSR ethos. We find that CSR-active enterprises report significantly higher worker wages, ceteris paribus. Local African suppliers benefit from CSR through knowledge transfer, but only when MNEs make tangible investments in supplier development.


Author(s):  
Duane Windsor

This chapter proposes a conceptual framework for comparing enterprise and governmental approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR) for developed and developing countries. An enterprise approach is voluntary. A governmental approach provides either requirements or guidance, strong or weak, for enterprise CSR. Focus is on multinational enterprises (MNEs), for two reasons. First, MNEs may operate across quite different conditions. Second, a major MNE concern has to do with fair trade and sustainable development supply chains. The chapter considers three approaches found in the extant literature. One approach asserts autonomy of developing countries from developed countries, and thus divergence of enterprise and governmental CSR by type of context. A second approach examines global convergence as highly context path-dependent and perhaps cosmetic. A third approach emphasizes “glocality” combining global thinking with local action. The author proposes an alternative understanding of how to compare CSR for developed and developing countries using theory versus context.


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