Corporate Social Responsibilities and Unethical Decisions—Do Cultural and Social Values and Political Philosophies Make a Difference?

Abstract

In recent years, the frequent occurrence of corporate scandals in Chinese companies has upturned the question of why top management teams in a country with collectivist values, which stress a group-oriented outlook, would make decisions that do not consider everyone affected by them. Previews literature suggested that cultural values and political ideology influence top corporate managers’ choice of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy for their firms through their CSR mindset. Reviewing environmental issues and cases in countries with different cultural, social, and political identities and philosophies, this study investigates the validity of these arguments. The study has adopted the traditional literature review approach to developing a discussion about the influence of cultural values, philosophies, and socio-political systems on CSR. Nineteen scholarly articles were consulted to establish the connection between CSR and cultures, with eleven selected for this paper, much of which reached conclusions based on interviews. The use of the framework presented here can potentially improve our understanding of the collectivist and individualist philosophies and how they influence CSR and top managers’ ethical decisions. However, much work remains to be done. Specifically, new theory development work and empirical research are both necessary.