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Over the years, with the increasing competition of the marketplace, the distinction between manufacturing and service industries is getting blurred. The core, manufactured products today are so entwined with services, that they have become indistinguishable. Moreover, these services are expected by the customer as an integral part of the product. Slowly all business is tending to be service‐oriented, aimed at satisfying customer needs. The Indian steel industry has been liberalised, after decades of protection and the competition is fierce. Capacities are being added at a furious pace, newer technologies are being introduced and cheaper imports are being dumped. In such a scenario, the answer to gaining competitive advantage lies in providing superior value to the customer, by providing customer service with the product at a lower delivery cost. Using customer service to retain and acquire customers could provide a new strategic advantage for steel makers. This paper explores the key issues, and possibilities and presents a strategy for achieving strategic advantage through customer service, in the context of the Indian steel industry. The concept can be extrapolated for any developing economy.

While corporate social responsibility (CSR) research and practice has expanded and evolved rapidly in recent years, little is known about how MNC subsidiaries develop their CSR strategies and how they reconcile global and local demands and pressures from both institutions and stakeholders. The paper aims to understand how institutions and stakeholder pressures interact at both national and international levels and how these interactions shape MNC subsidiaries' CSR in Bangladesh.

Multiple case studies were used to investigate the CSR practices of 10 MNC subsidiaries operating in Bangladesh. To collect data, twenty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted. For supplementing primary data, secondary data from annual reports and websites were collected.

The article demonstrates that the practice of CSR in Bangladesh is a result of pressures exerted by parent companies, international institutions and international stakeholders. The article reveals how lack of pressure from local stakeholders and institutions enables subsidiaries to gain traction and use their agency to apply globalised CSR conceptualisations not necessarily applicable to the localised context.

The study has synthesised existing approaches to develop a multilevel framework for understanding how the intricate interactions between institutions and stakeholders from different levels (i.e. national and international levels) determine the trajectory of CSR adopted by subsidiaries in developing countries. This interaction undoubtedly plays a key role in determining the types of CSR strategy being enacted, the potential agency of different actors to shape change and the extent to which such pressures are likely to lead to CSR strategies that actually reflect and respond to the needs of local stakeholders.