Changing higher education systems through corporate social responsibility? _ A study on multinational enterprises’ efforts to establish proto-institutions at Vietnamese universities

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.

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Does Employee Quality Affect Corporate Social Responsibility? Evidence from China

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12072692 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (7) ◽

pp. 2692 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Shilu Sun ◽

Tiantian Li ◽

Hong Ma ◽

Rita Yi Man Li ◽

Kostas Gouliamos ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Corporate Social Responsibility ◽

Social Responsibility ◽

Educational Level ◽

Positive Relationship ◽

Ordinary Least Squares ◽

Independent Directors ◽

Corporate Social ◽

The Impact ◽

Positive Effect

This paper investigated the impact of employee quality on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Based on data from China A-share-listed companies for the years 2012–2016 and using ordinary least squares, our empirical results show that the educational level of the workforce, as a proxy for employee quality, is positively associated with CSR, which suggests that higher education can promote CSR implementation. Additional analyses found that this positive relationship is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises, enterprises in regions with lower marketisation processes, and firms with lower proportions of independent directors. This study extends the literature on human capital at the level of firms’ entire workforce and CSR by elaborating the positive effect of employee quality on CSR in the context of an emerging economy (China). The results suggest that it is necessary to consider the educational level of employees when analysing CSR, which is of strategic significance for corporate sustainable development.

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