The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) at the macro-level and well-established dimensions of national culture offered by Hofstede’s framework.
The authors employ a composite index for quantifying CSR proliferation and present new findings on the role of cultural specificity – proxied by Hofstede’s dimensions – on CSR endorsement among national business sectors.
Results indicate that cultural perspectives pertaining to “long-term vs short-term orientation” as well as “indulgence vs restraint” affect positively the composite CSR index, while “uncertainty avoidance” has a negative impact. In contrast, the effect of “power distance,” “individualism” and “masculinity” is found to be insignificant.
The study offers new insights to institutional theorists as well as political economy researchers for a deeper investigation of informal institutions, such as culture, which shape national or regional specificities of CSR and retain a moderating effect on the voluntary/self-regulation activities of business entities.
