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The purpose of this corporate social responsibility (CSR) paper is to investigate specific social roles of multinational corporations (MNCs) in a developing economy, and how these MNCs’ CSR marketing activities are legitimized, from the institutional perspective.

Anchoring this study in institutional theory, the authors explore how formal and informal institutions affect the legitimacy of MNCs’ CSR marketing practices in the host country of Pakistan. The authors conducted interviews with top managers from 15 local MNCs undertaking CSR programs in various sectors, such as automotive, banking, consumer products, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, and telecommunications.

The authors find that MNCs show commitment to CSR programs despite underdeveloped and very weak formal institutions, and that lots of these initiatives such as education, health, environmental protection, and civil society/religious organizations are oriented toward norms-based social CSR marketing, i.e. charitable and philanthropic work, civil society-led social media and religious groups also force MNCs to spend more on CSR marketing initiatives. MNCs follow headquarters’ global CSR marketing strategies and adapt their CSR programs to the host country’s norms, focussing on their product brand value related CSR marketing. However, the MNCs have not taken an integrated approach to CSR marketing, considering the overall institutional environment of the host country.

On the basis of very weak regulatory constraints on CSR marketing activities, MNCs have the propensity to develop normatively acceptable CSR marketing under very weak formal institutional pressures. The findings suggest the need for developing an integrative approach to the CSR strategies of MNCs, comprehensively incorporating regulatory, economic, and socio-cultural as well as various stakeholders’ perspectives.

The authors take the institution-based approach to MNCs’ CSR marketing in the context of the developing economy, which extends the extant MNC and international marketing literature. Particularly, MNCs’ CSR marketing legitimacy depends highly on the adaptation to local norms, leading to the importance of the normative pillar of institutionalization in developing economies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how employing corporate social entrepreneurship and developing a network of relationships with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can support and contribute towards the internationalisation of service firms into the base of the pyramid (BOP) markets in emerging markets.

This research adopts an exploratory approach employing qualitative multiple case studies. Three service firms that have targeted the BOP markets in India were studied. In total, 25 in-depth interviews were conducted with multinational corporations (MNCs) and their NGO partners. Data analysis was facilitated through pattern matching and systematic case comparison.

The findings reveal that, by engaging in social entrepreneurship, these MNCs have focused on the neglected needs of the BOP population, developed sustainable solutions and empowerment, and started with social value creation and postponed value capturing. The pursuit of corporate social entrepreneurship has paved the way for them to establish relationships with NGOs. While the MNCs have mainly had the technical knowledge and financial resources required, collaboration with NGOs have allowed them to learn about the BOP’s specific needs and benefit from the NGOs’ knowledge, human resources and good relationships in this market.

This research unravels how service firms can seize opportunities at the BOP. The authors build on social entrepreneurship theory and bring new insights to the field of international business. In addition, the authors broaden the network view and show how networking with social actors such as NGOs enables the mobilisation of resources, actors and activities in emerging markets.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the link between the globalization/adaptation debate and corporate foundation activity within a small subset of such foundations. In the light of this debate, the study analyzes the corporate social responsibility (CSR) approaches of this sample of corporate-owned foundations using the tri-dimensional CSR research model of Arthaud-Day (2005) to articulate the perspective, content and strategic orientations of the companies.

The study selects three different corporate foundations based on internationalization scale and field of activities. A content analysis methodology is applied to the data collected from the official web sites of 24 corporate foundations.

The analysis results show a general compatibility between the subsidiaries and the main branches of the corporate foundations, at least on the conceptual level. However, the practices of CSR activities, targeted stakeholders or content domains differ at the operational level. Nevertheless, local governance is still not totally independent, especially in terms of received funds. Therefore, this study concludes that the internationalization strategies of these corporate foundations are still at a formative stage of transnationalization.

The study explores the three selected international companies and their corporate foundations. Future studies may extend the number of selected industries and companies. Together with increased coverage, future survey studies may help explain the global or local orientations of corporate foundations’ CSR in different domains.

Corporate foundations may extend their transnational strategies to further stages by differentiating between those units that should be managed on a global scale and those that should be managed by local authorities. They may balance the amount of investment in different regions while adopting collaborative governance models to respond to regions where grant applications are not an easy tool for stakeholders to use.

Given the relatively paucity of CSR studies with an international focus, this study contributes to the standardization or localization debate in the international business literature. The study’s originality lies in its attempt to operationalize the theoretical research model and through its use of corporate foundations as the unit of analysis.

Most studies on consumers and corporate social responsibility (CSR) have focused on Western contexts. Consequently, good insight is lacking into non-Western markets where consumers may respond differently. China is a case in point, despite the popularity of the CSR concept and high societal expectations of firms. The purpose of this paper is to examine how Chinese consumers perceive the underlying components of CSR found in Western countries; whether their CSR expectations differ for local Chinese compared to foreign firms; and whether results differ across regions within China.

A country-wide study was done using a questionnaire to collect data in seven distinctive regional markets across China.

Findings show that the originally Western CSR construct seems generalizable to China, but consumers across all regions perceive two rather than four components: one combining economic and legal responsibilities (labelled “required CSR”) and another combining ethical and philanthropic responsibilities (“expected CSR”). Consumers expect local Chinese firms to take more responsibility than foreign firms, particularly for required CSR.

This study focused on consumer perceptions, not on actual buying behaviour, which is a potential area for further research. Follow-up investigation to see whether the findings regarding the CSR concept also hold in other emerging and developing countries would be worthwhile. This also applies to an extension of the different expectations vis-à-vis foreign and local firms.

The study gives more insight into notions of standardization and adaptation with regard to CSR, considering China compared to other countries and China’s different internal markets. This is relevant for international marketers confronted with (potential) investments and activities in China, inbound or outbound, or in need of a comparative global perspective.

While the findings show some context-specificity for CSR in and across China, they also confirm the relevance of the originally Western CSR components to an emerging-market setting. These insights may be helpful for those interested in furthering CSR across countries, and locally as well as globally.

This study responds to calls for an improved understanding of the context-specificity of the originally Western CSR construct and of the extent to which it may be generalizable to non-Western settings such as China. The authors used a sample covering all regions of China and discovered two important dimensions. The results may be helpful to guide the debate on the plethora of CSR conceptualizations into a more focused direction, with clear relevance for the marketing field.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship among consumers’ corporate associations, consumer-corporate connection, and corporate brand loyalty, with a particular focus on the moderating role of national culture.

The conceptual framework is tested on American and South Korean subjects. Structural equation modeling is used to test the hypothesized framework.

The positive influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) associations on social self-concept connection is stronger in collectivist than individualist culture, whereas the positive influence of personal self-concept connection on his/her loyalty to the corporate brand is stronger in individualist than collectivist culture.

The study relied on participants’ memory about a product and a manufacturing company of a product. It is possible that their memories about the product and manufacturing company could be incomplete and be tainted by their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a particular product they experienced rather than overall brand image of the company’s products.

Firms are advised to assess how customers of the target market across different national cultures perceive their CSR initiatives and corporate competences in deciding on the type of images and associations to invest and build, that is, either authentic CSR activities or product quality competence.

A substantiation of the moderating role of national culture on the impact of a consumer’s corporate associations on his/her self-concept connections as well as on the impact of self-concept connections on his/her corporate brand loyalty.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives can provide a mechanism for tapping into the vast consumer markets of developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how regional headquarters (RHQs) of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in Africa pursue CSR and whether their initiatives are aligned with their own global CSR agendas or tailored to local idiosyncrasies.

Following a secondary data analysis of MNEs’ CSR and sustainability reports and their homepages, in-depth interviews with their CSR managers in African RHQs are conducted.

The paper provides insights into motivations of RHQs to pursue specific CSR initiatives. MNEs need to make considerable adaptations to their global CSR agendas in order to develop initiatives that fit the local setting. The authors further identify key institutions in developing countries and discuss the potential of collaborations with MNEs in their CSR initiatives.

Future research should assess the impact of environmental differences (e.g. developing nations compared to industrialized nations) and firm characteristics on CSR autonomy (both at RHQs and at the subsidiary level). Furthermore, the perspectives of the various stakeholders (such as local governments or NGOs) should be examined to establish a holistic understanding of CSR in developing countries.

MNEs gain a better understanding of peculiarities encountered in developing countries and are provided with recommendations on how to develop their CSR policies.

The paper directs awareness to CSR in the African context, thereby providing a platform for understanding some of this continent’s most important challenges.

The paper shows how the context of developing countries shapes the translation process of MNEs’ global CSR agendas. Companies benefit from the best practice examples provided in this paper and learn from the stakeholder collaborations discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine organizational cross-culture differences in public-private research-oriented relationships. More precisely, it focusses on the analysis university-industry collaborations partnering for research agreements with the aim of fostering the transfer of knowledge and innovation. It analyzes the key organizational cross-cultural differences that could hinder the successful performance of these agreements from a relationship marketing (RM) perspective.

Based on a comprehensive literature review of organizational culture and RM, a quantitative study was carried out and a structural equation model was proposed and tested.

Cross-cultural organizational differences in private-public sectors are proved to negatively influence relationship performance. Market orientation difference appears as the most significant barrier to relationship performance, followed by time orientation difference and to a lesser extent flexibility difference.

By integrating organizational culture and RM literatures, the main contribution of this paper is the cross-cultural analysis of private-public relationships (in this case university-industry relationships) from the perspective of RM. Hence, this research will inform management seeking to develop successful public-private collaborations by enhancing their understanding of cross-cultural factors underlying relationship success and failure.

This study aims to investigate the importance of relational and conditional knowledge by assessing how service and signaling competences affect manufacturing firms’ productivity. These relationships are explored in the context of Africa, where, paradoxically, firms selling abroad must satisfy different market demands than firms that serve only domestic markets.

The authors draw on the World Bank Enterprise Survey to perform a cross-sectional analysis of 4,683 manufacturing firms. These surveys cover the period 2009-2017 and 35 different African countries. The authors define service competence development as co-location with knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS) firms, measured through KIBS density at city level. Signaling is measured through outward-looking competences.

This paper shows that African exporters differ significantly from their non-exporting counterparts in terms of productivity and competences. External service competence generates productivity gains for exporters but has the opposite effect for non-exporters. Results consistent with previous research also show that signaling competences generate productivity gains, but the effect for firms serving domestic markets is stronger than the effect for exporting firms. The authors use paradoxes of learning to interpret these results.

This study detects nuances of the African context that increase the understanding of knowledge management in emerging markets. The findings would benefit from confirmation in a longitudinal and causal setting.

African exporting firms should establish mechanisms to develop joint knowledge with external partners (know-with) to enhance their competitiveness, whereas African non-exporters should prioritize building knowledge credibility.

The study develops a novel empirical approach to analyzing firm competences in Africa. It also shows that contextualization of existing knowledge management theories matters, opening a research avenue to test further existing theories in emerging economies.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the internationalization process (IP) of retailing firms from emerging markets and to determine a new focus and/or modifications if necessary in the established Western‐based theories.

The paper follows an exploratory approach utilizing qualitative multiple case studies. Data are collected through eight in‐depth interviews with senior managers of four Turkish retail firms in textile and ready‐to‐wear industry. An inductive approach is followed.

It is found that internal drivers, home and host country characteristics and matching have an impact on the IP of retail firms from emerging markets. A table is formed to compare and contrast IP in the context of developed country, emerging market, and Turkish retail firms. Also a model is proposed to understand the IP of Turkish retail firms.

The proposed model of IP for Turkish retail firms provides an initial point for building theory in this quite new area of research.

This paper is among the first attempts to study the IP of Turkish retail firms, but it does not intend to claim generalizability to all emerging country firms.