Responding to institutional plurality: Micro-politics in the rollout of a global corporate social responsibility norm in a multi-national enterprise

Abstract

How can we make sense of the range of organizational dynamics that emerge when managers of multi-national enterprises (MNEs) seek to serve their interests as they perceive multiple demands in relation to corporate social responsibility (CSR)? In this article, I conceptualize this situation as a case of CSR institutional plurality. Drawing from the literature on MNE micro-politics, which I connect to the CSR literature, I analyze qualitative data gathered from five subsidiaries of a UK MNE to which their HQ transferred CSR reporting: a global norm with a typical explicit CSR mode. My analysis reveals that subsidiary managers responded to CSR institutional plurality by developing aligned or contested versions of the global CSR norm, that were then promoted through the deployment of discursive and symbolic tactics. I develop a grounded model that improves understanding of three power capabilities of subsidiary actors, that is, their socialization to explicit CSR norms, the exercise of employee voice and their political capital that can be deployed to support or curb the advancement of the managerial tactics. In doing so, I reveal the complex pathways through which lower-status subsidiary actors can take part in the reconfiguration of a global CSR norm.