Corporate Social Responsibility in Emerging Markets - The Importance of the Governance Environment

• This study examines how country-level, industry-level, and firm-level factors affect the extent of corporate communication about CSR in Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC). In particular, using the data of 105 largest MNCs from BRIC, we investigate the CSR motives, processes, and stakeholder issues discussed in corporate communications. • On the country level, we use a newly developed framework of the governance environment which differentiates between rule-based and relation-based governance. Our study reveals that the governance environment of a country is the most important driving force for the communication intensity about CSR. • Our results show that firms communicating more CSR tend to be from more rule-based societies, in the manufacturing industry, and of larger size. They also tend to have stronger corporate governance as measured by a high proportion of outside board directors and, specifically, the separation of the roles of the chairman and the CEO