Corporate Social Responsibility in Multinational Corporations: A Co-evolutionary Theory Perspective

The study looks at why and how strategic Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) approaches differ across subsidiaries of the same MNC, by employing the co-evolutionary theory perspective. Findings suggest that inconsistency in internal factors within an MNC – leadership commitment, social competency, absorptive capacity, level of CSR integration into business; varying external environments faced by each subsidiary; as well as the type of co-evolutionary dynamics model operating in each MNC result in variations. MNCs with the managed selection and holistic renewal CSR co-evolutionary models were found to have more cohesive and better CSR performance. The study covered four MNCs across eleven countries.