Chapter 3: Varieties of Global Responsibility: Culture and Institutional Diversity in CSR

Since its inception in the US (Carroll, 1999), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has taken global dimensions across organizational contexts, from multinational companies (MNCs) to non – governmental organizations (NGOs), and has been actively promoted by global organizations such as the OECD, UN and ICC (Gjølberg, 2009). The global nature of CSR has given rise to the development of global reporting standards, certifications schemes and concrete CSR practices, widely acknowledged and adopted by organizations, across national borders (Sahlin-Andersson, 2006; Webb, 2004). Thus, CSR has become linked to the notion of globalization and is often viewed as a global idea diffused through international and regional institutions and through business practices adopted by transnational corporations, with the objective of protecting environmental and human resources (Ruggie, 2003).