Is the perception of CSR country bound? A CSR based reputation study of Spanish companies in Latin America

Abstract

Spanish companies play a vital and omnipresent role in Latin American economies. The main objective of the paper is to find if there is any perceptional variation among Latin Americans in concern with the valuation of Spanish companies based on corporate social responsibility (CSR) criteria by identifying key parameters that discriminate among countries. Society judges companies beyond their profit maximization abilities (Friedman, 1970). We found that Argentina and Chile valued more negatively than Mexico and Brazil the behavior of Spanish companies with respect to human rights and the environment. We can add Peru to the negative view when we talk about the perception of respondents in corruption issues. These countries also perceive a double standard with Spanish companies behaving worse in their countries compared to Spain. A higher proportion of people in Argentina and Chile support government regulation of CSR activities which is in line with the negative view of the behavior of companies. Mexico and Brazil have a more positive view of almost all the CSR criteria included in the model. Only in the perception of how Spanish companies behave towards clients, Peru has a higher valuation than Mexico and Brazil. For all the other criteria, Peru behaves as a swing country sharing views with both groups depending on the issue. Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, discriminant analysis, Latin America, Spanish companies.