Abstract
Although interest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in emerging markets has increased in recent years, most research still focuses on developed countries. The scant literature on the topic, which traditionally suggested that CSR was relatively underdeveloped in emerging markets, has recently explored the context specificity, suggesting that it is different and reflects the specific social and political background. This would particularly apply to local companies, not so much to foreign subsidiaries of multinationals active in emerging markets. Thus far, empirical research that systematically documents a range of CSR activities of local companies and their performance has been scarce. This paper reports the results of a survey conducted among companies in the Mexican auto industry. CSR performance was investigated across three dimensions: environmental, labor, and community, using measures from existing research and global, ‘Western’ standards of practice, to identify the type of CSR activities and the level of CSR performance that exists, if at all, in the emerging-market context. Results show that local companies do engage in the type of CSR activities commonly associated with CSR in developed countries. To the extent that comparisons could be made, our findings also indicate that CSR activities and levels among the sample are comparable to what is known about CSR in developed-country settings. Moreover, six of the nine CSR dimensions are intercorrelated, which suggests that CSR in the Mexican auto parts industry is more structural than incidental.
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Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Marloes van Beveren for her outstanding research assistance; Alejandro Farías at the Industria Nacional de Autopartes (INA) in Mexico for his advice and commitment; Peter le Poole and Judith Blaauw at the Royal Dutch Embassy in Mexico for their support of the project; Miguel Olivas at Clarion University for his advice on Internet surveys and research in Mexico; and Maru Albor Bibian, David Ramírez Plascencia, and Eva Guzmán for their invaluable assistance in translation efforts. The on-line survey was contracted from Net Questionnaires B.V.
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Muller, A., Kolk, A. CSR Performance in Emerging Markets Evidence from Mexico. J Bus Ethics 85 (Suppl 2), 325–337 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-008-9735-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-008-9735-y