The perception of socially and environmentally responsible practices based on values and cultural environment from a customer perspective

Abstract

The business environment undergoes constant and dynamic changes. The current social, legal and economic contexts where firms operate enable them to meet their stakeholders' needs. Accordingly, efficient management more oriented to meet customers' requirements regarding firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices has been increasingly credited for the achievement of new firm managerial goals such as sustainability. Thus, the aim of this paper is to address the influence of the structure of human values and cultural differences by country on customers' CSR perception taking into consideration a firm's customers as one of its main stakeholders. Unlike the majority of earlier papers focusing on the relationship between customers' CSR perception and firm performance, this paper provides insights under the umbrella of social sustainability according to recent trends based on societal needs and firm commitments. The cross-cultural analysis has been conducted in a Latin American-European context by comparing two different cultural environments, Spain and Brazil, scarcely analysed in the managerial literature. The findings reveal that human values such as self-transcendence, conservation and openness to change exert a significant influence on the CSR's customer perception. Furthermore, cross-cultural differences by country moderate the relationship between these human values and CSR perception. The results allow for an adequate understanding of the drivers influencing customer perception of CSR social and environmental practices, and these drivers in turn are fundamental to firms' sustainability and, thus, firms' sustainable competitive advantage, as well as to academia to advance knowledge.