A thematic analysis of the links between multinational enterprises’ corporate social responsibility and the Sustainable Development Goals in Myanmar

Adopting textual analysis, we examine the links between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 30 foreign subsidiaries in Myanmar, a Country of Concern (CoC). The analysis covers the period from 2001 up to 2020. Our work contributes to the literature on SDGs and CSR in a CoC. We find that although multinational enterprises (MNEs) address community issues via philanthropy unrelated to their principal business, in some cases CSR is related to their core capability. Despite some diversity in CSR processes, we find that MNEs tackle limited CSR issues. Furthermore, MNEs’ CSR generates positive externalities rather than reduce negative externalities. This finding confirms the discourse in international business policy suggesting MNEs focus on only positive externalities and ignoring negative externalities, and this neglect of negative externalities could result in a net-negative impact from their CSR. Nevertheless, we observe that CSR activities map onto all but one SDG, thus demonstrating the potential for further investment in CSR in Myanmar. Our study highlights that given a CoC is all about institutional weakness, MNEs’ CSR must focus on strengthening institutions to bring about systemic changes in these contexts, as opposed to short-term ‘bandage’ approaches, otherwise, gains to SDGs will be short-lived.