This paper develops propositions on the added value of normatively-based, employee-oriented corporate social responsibility, specifically on the issue whether an individual owner-manager can add value within a foreign subsidiary by means of normatively-based, employee-oriented CSR. We suggest that this emerging research area sheds light on managerial discretion within a foreign environment and on the question if globalisation of business, based on economic rationality, inevitably leads to a race to the bottom or that normative resources - the view of owner-managers on the role of employees within their company - add value as well.Based on five case studies, this study develops propositions about the impact of international employee oriented CSR policies on mutual value creation within multinational SMEs. We detect conditions under which employee-oriented CSR adds value, what the influence is of the host country institutional environment and suggest differences across sectors and investment motives. The results suggest that not only motives but also the skills of the owner/manager as an institutional entrepreneur are critical in dealing with institutional variance.Conference paper bij het: 1st Interdisciplinary Conference on Stakeholders, Resources and Value Creation, Barcelona, 7-8 juni 2011
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This chapter calls for greater scholarly attention to business association initiatives in international corporate social responsibility (CSR) governance. Economic globalization has led to the proliferation of private governance initiatives created to address social and environmental issues. Most existing scholarship has focused on those created by multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs), an organizational form of CSR coalition driven by NGOs. Yet growing empirical evidence suggests that in most global industries, CSR initiatives created by a different type of coalition, led and composed exclusively by businesses, appears to dwarf MSIs in scale, scope, and influence. More research is needed to examine these overlooked goliaths, particularly their antecedents, organizational and governance forms, and effects on global CSR outcomes. Management and international business scholars are particularly well positioned to contribute new insights on this important phenomenon.
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Will multinational SMEs use internationalisation to achieve labour cost savings at the expense of employees both in their home country and abroad or will they transfer their existing employee-oriented practices to their foreign subsidiaries? This paper argues that the answer to this question is affected by: (1) the salience of employees at home as well as abroad to management; (2) the type of employee-relations arrangements in use within the company; (3) the capability to develop and use high-performance human resource instruments for employee-oriented CSR practices; (4) the capability to adapt the type and design of high-performance human resource instruments to the local institutional environment; (5) the extent to which the multinational SME possesses institutional capital. Multinational SMEs with slack resources, a high degree of institutional capital, and to which employees are highly salient, are most likely to transfer employee-oriented CSR practices abroad and to do so successfully.
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