CSR and the country of origin effect in multinational corporations - An comparativ and contextual analysis of Brazilian and Norwegian MNCs in the oil and gas industries

Abstract

CSR as a corporate practice has become widely acknowledged over the last decade and corporations all over the world increeasingly commit themselves to CSR striving to achieve legitimacy for their corporate operations. In this paper I provide a deeper exploration into the factors that influence corporate decisions on CSR aiming to create a improved understanding of the reasoning behind companies commitment to CSR and why approaches to CSR tend to differ between firms based on their national distinctiveness. Given the lack of insight into the institutional perspective on CSR I investigate the ‘National Business System’ in the companies’ country of origin, whilst simultanously including internal and external factors that needs to be accounted for in order to address the rationality behind corporatives growing dedication to social responsibility.

An qualitative approach was employed, where a integrated theoretical framework and semi-structured interviews have been used as methodological stand for the thesis. I carry out an empirical analysis on 25 Brazilian and Norwegian companies and conclude that different CSR orientation may be subject to different pressures from a wide number of stakeholders considered essential to the firm. The study shows that the insitutional climate for CSR in both countries are positive and companies’ expresses a strong commitment to CSR, but their CSR content and primary focus differ as a consequence of their various institutional background. Still, I find evidence that local socioeconomic context influences actual CSR practices and that corporations largely addapt their initiatives to local requirements. I claim that the relative influential strength of each institution vary across countries and some were found to be more pivotal than others. My findings suggests that both internal and external discourses has enforced Brazilian companies to engage in CSR. Civil society actors and local NGOs as well as global governance seem to be powerful influential forces shaping companies approach to CSR. Taking the Norwegian companies, country-level political-economic institutions and cultural norms deeply influence the interpretation of CSR in multinational corporations.