Impact or Outputs? Exploring Multinational’s CSR Activities in Mexico

Abstract

This article aims to explore how multinationals measure CSR activities in Mexico and their alignment with core business activities and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through a qualitative approach and an exploratory methodology, based on 15 semi-structured interviews with CSR and sustainability managers, the results suggest that multinationals in this sample focus on outputs rather than on impact. Two reasons provided by the interviewees are as follows: (1) impact measurement does not carry any punishment or social reward, so corporations do not have much interest in measuring it; and (2) some corporations do not know how to measure CSR impact, so they usually report outputs in their sustainability reports. The results also suggest a disconnection between CSR and core business activities. Finally, multinationals recognise SDGs as a paramount guide to address the world’s more urgent problems and are starting to link their CSR initiatives to particular goals. However, such efforts are still incipient and mostly mean connecting CSR initiatives and specific SDGs in their sustainability reports.