Abstract
After decades of isolation, Myanmar opened up its economy to international trade in 2012. This opening led to a rapid influx of international investment, exposure to the international corporate social responsibility (CSR) community and presumed pressures to conform to related norms and practices. We report on a large-scale survey of firms operating in Myanmar, comparing perceptions of corporate practitioners of CSR and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Our findings show that awareness levels of CSR among domestic Myanmar firms match those of their international peers, but the application of and selection criteria for CSR implementation by domestic firms in Myanmar differs from typical CSR activities observed in other parts of the world, in particular by Global North firms. More surprisingly, Myanmar firms have a higher awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) than their multinational counterparts. Our findings have implications for CSR advocacy in Myanmar as well as for the dissemination of corporate responsibility and sustainability into the developing world more generally.
Highlights
The global corporate responsibility landscape has been and continues to be the subject of profound and wide-ranging changes
We report on a large-scale survey of firms operating in Myanmar, comparing perceptions of corporate practitioners of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
Our findings show that awareness levels of CSR among domestic Myanmar firms match those of their international peers, but the application of and selection criteria for CSR implementation by domestic firms in Myanmar differs from typical CSR activities observed in other parts of the world, in particular by Global North firms
Summary
The global corporate responsibility landscape has been and continues to be the subject of profound and wide-ranging changes. There is a continuing global dissemination of corporate responsibility tools, practices, and initiatives [1]. While firms in developing countries have long been seen as lagging behind their developed country counterparts in social responsibility issues, this picture of a fairly neat “North-South divide” [2] in terms of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices is changing rapidly. Smaller developing country firms are increasingly likely to be part of global value chains led by large MNCs [5], and increasingly exposed to social and environmental responsibility pressures stemming from developed country consumer markets and the ever-expanding range of CSR tools and initiatives
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