The effect of culture on businesses' perception of CSR

Numerous interpretations regarding the content, the form, and the rationale for CSR co-exist despite the publication of international codes of conduct such as the U.N. Global Compact. The variety in perceptions of CSR can be explained by a number of factors: individual characteristics such as gender, age, and personal values; organisational characteristics such as firm size and organisational culture; and environmental factors such as industry and national institutions. The latter factor lies at the core of this thesis, which attempts to evaluate the influence of culture, i.e. informal institution, on the perception of CSR by using Hofstede’s cultural values framework. Annual reports and CSR reports and corporate web pages of thirty large corporations issued from two industries and three countries are systematically reviewed. Besides an important industry effect, several relationships between culture and the perception of CSR can be observed, though their direction is sometimes contrary to expectations or unclear. Summing up, firms perceive they need a broader commitment to CSR to acquire their social license to operate in stronger uncertainty avoidance, less masculine and less individualistic countries. Lower individualism, lower masculinity, and higher uncertainty avoidance indexes are associated with a perception of CSR as a strategy resulting in net benefits. Overall, this thesis contributes to the argument against the universality of CSR in the academic debate and shows the necessity to consider culture and industry in analysing CSR. It also insists on the importance of industrial recipes and isomorphism in integrating CSR in businesses’ corporate strategy