Title: Corporate social responsibility: a crossroad between changing values, innovation and internationalisation

Authors: Inmaculada Carrasco-Monteagudo; Inmaculada Buendía-Martínez

Addresses: Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Plaza de la Universidad, 1. 02071 Albacete, Spain ' Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Avda. de los Alfares, 44. 16071 Cuenca, Spain

Abstract: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can be conceived as a construct that embraces different ideas, conceptions and relations between firms and society. This role as interface allows CSR to act as a business driver to transfer cultural values from the macro-level and transform them into part of corporate culture in the micro-level. Considering this integrative theoretical framework, relationships among development, changing values, CSR, innovation, and internationalisation are analysed. An empirical study using a Structural Equation Model (SEM) of Partial Least Square (PLS) technique, based on data from 32 countries, has been made. The results show that when society's values shift to post-materialism, firms that integrate CSR in their corporate culture obtain a source of knowledge creation that encourages firms' innovation and internationalisation.

Keywords: corporate culture; organisational culture; value changes; corporate social responsibility; CSR; innovation; internationalisation; international management; post-materialist values; economic development; structural equation modelling; SEM; partial least squares; PLS; knowledge creation.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIM.2013.054327

European Journal of International Management, 2013 Vol.7 No.3, pp.295 - 314

Published online: 10 Sep 2014 *

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