Corporate Social Responsibility and Emerging Market Multinationals

Abstract

Integrating expatriate management and corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature, this study aims to explore the underlying microfoundations of the overseas CSR strategy of emerging market multinationals (EMNEs). We posit that EMNEs engaging in overseas CSR activities can yield abundant learning advantages and enhance the individuals’ learning skills (i.e., cross-cultural competence). Our empirical results confirm this argument and show that the CSR activities can improve the EMNE expatriates’ work performance and contributes back to the headquarters via reverse knowledge transfer. Compared with the extant literature suggesting that CSR is a compulsory investment for EMNEs to get rid of liability of foreignness, this study shows that the “beyond regulatory” investments can be viewed as learning expenses for these firms to get rid of liability of backwardness. Our findings framed in a knowledge-based view contributes to the microfoundations of CSR research, and provide an in-depth learning paths analysis of emerging market multinationals.