Abstract
Is corporate social responsibility (CSR) linked to performance-related instrumentality or real moral concerns? Does CSR create resource advantages? Reasons for and results of CSR remain unclear. We choose a leading retail company in a Confucian, collectivist, and high power distance society and ask whether managers are naturally oriented toward societal actions. We study managerial perceptions regarding the importance and the performance of CSR in relation to other management factors. Drawing on Hunt’s (2000, A General Theory of Competition: Resources, Competences, Productivity, Economic Growth (Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA)) resource advantage theory, we find that the perceived importance of CSR is only fair vis-à-vis other management factors, but its high performance makes it a core resource for the company.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the support of the E.S.R.C. Postdoctoral Fellowship carried out in the University of Cambridge, the College of Humanities and Social Science, Management School and Economics at the University of Edinburgh as well as the Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme (ORSAS). We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments.
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Hu, YC., Fatima Wang, CC. Collectivism, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Resource Advantages in Retailing. J Bus Ethics 86, 1–13 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-008-9789-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-008-9789-x