Mapping the Relationship Among Political Ideology, CSR Mindset, and CSR Strategy: A Contingency Perspective Applied to Chinese Managers

The literature on antecedents of corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies of firms has been predominately content driven. Informed by the managerial sense-making process perspective, we develop a contingency theoretical framework explaining how political ideology of managers affects the choice of CSR strategy for their firms through their CSR mindset. We also explain to what extent the outcome of this process is shaped by the firm’s internal institutional arrangements and external factors impacting on the firm. We develop and test several hypotheses using data collected from 129 Chinese managers. The results show that managers with a stronger socialist ideology are likely to develop a mindset favouring CSR, which induces the adoption of a proactive CSR strategy. The CSR mindset mediates the link between socialist ideology and CSR strategy. The strength of the relationship between the CSR mindset and the choice of CSR strategy is moderated by customer response to CSR, industry competition, the role of government, and CSR-related managerial incentives

Stakeholder Engagement and Sustainable Corporate Community Investment

This paper presents the findings of research exploring the value and impacts of corporate community investment (CCI) through community partnerships. The research considered the community partners' perceptions of the value and impact of CCI. We adopted an inquiry paradigm utilising constructivist ontology, interpretivist epistemology and a case study method. In dialogue with Wesfarmers Ltd's community partners, the ‘realities’ presented by these beneficiary stakeholders were interpreted and understood (verstehen).While the CCI programmes with each of the not-for-profit organisations had different objectives, we were able to classify, under broad headings, the nature of the benefits to the community. One question highlighted is whether all corporate investing is the same? We found two aspects to this: the strategic fit for the community organisation of proposed investment and whether the corporate partner sought a relational as opposed to transactional approach to funding provision. Recommendations can be made for the funding structure deemed to be most effective from the community partners' perspectives