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Bric Companies Seeking Legitimacy Through Corporate Social Responsibility

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  • Davide Fiaschi
  • Elisa Giuliani
  • Federica Nieri

Abstract

BRIC countries have generally gone through a process of liberalization and rapid economic growth that has allowed their major companies to acquire increasing weight in the global marketplace. However, they are still striving to achieve full legitimacy in the international arena. In a bid to close this legitimacy gap, BRIC firms are making efforts to align with the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) global norms of doing business, and recently have adopted a portfolio of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. In this paper we provide a deeper exploration into the factors that relate to BRIC firms'adoption of different types of CSR initiatives-i.e. social policies (philanthropic projects favoring different stakeholders), publication of CSR reports, adoption of GRI standards; adherence to and financial support for the UN Global Compact. We carry out an empirical analysis on 60 BRIC large public companies, and find support for the idea that different kinds of CSR initiatives may be subject to different pressures and may serve different legitimization strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Davide Fiaschi & Elisa Giuliani & Federica Nieri, 2014. "Bric Companies Seeking Legitimacy Through Corporate Social Responsibility," Discussion Papers 2014/183, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:pie:dsedps:2014/183
    Note: ISSN 2039-1854
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Anna Jessop & Nicole Wilson & Michal Bardecki & Cory Searcy, 2019. "Corporate Environmental Disclosure in India: An Analysis of Multinational and Domestic Agrochemical Corporations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-33, September.
    2. Elisa Giuliani & Annamaria Tuan & José Calvimontes Cano, 2021. "Creating Shared Value Meets Human Rights: A Sense-Making Perspective in Small-Scale Firms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 173(3), pages 489-505, October.
    3. Elisa Giuliani & Federica Nieri & Andrea Vezzulli, 2019. "BEST IN CLASS BUT BIG WRONGDOERS: Exploring the financial performance and human rights infringe ments nexus in large emerging country companies," Discussion Papers 2019/250, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    4. Nimruji Jammulamadaka, 2020. "Reading Institutional Logics of CSR in India from a Post-colonial Location," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 163(3), pages 599-617, May.
    5. Matteo Corciolani & Federica Nieri & Annamaria Tuan, 2020. "Does involvement in corporate social irresponsibility affect the linguistic features of corporate social responsibility reports?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(2), pages 670-680, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    BRIC firms; internationalization; Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR); liability of foreignness (LOF) and emergingness (LOE).;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business
    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility
    • F6 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization

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