مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد حوزه مسئولیت اجتماعی شرکت در شرکت های چند ملیتی – الزویر 2018

The extent of corporate social responsibility of a multinational enterprise along a global production system or chain is contested. Legal approaches highlight ownership, causation, and awareness. The stakeholder approach broadens responsibility but fails to address the directness of linkages. Adopting a social network perspective to examine international production within modern global factory systems, we argue that the extent of responsibility of the lead firm is impacted by all activities and participants in the chain. The full extent of responsibility is likely to be determined by whether indirect partners are exclusive or non-exclusive. Global factory systems, while contributing to geographical, ownership, and task fragmentation, significantly amplify linkages, interactions, and awareness implying a concomitant increase in corporate social responsibility when viewed from a social network perspective.

Introduction

The subject of corporate social responsibility (CSR) within international business has been one of growing importance for both business managers and academic researchers (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012; Egri & Ralston, 2008; Scherer & Palazzo, 2011). CSR can be defined as “a company’s commitment to minimizing or eliminating any harmful effects and maximising its long-run beneficial impact on society” (Mohr, Webb, & Harris, 2001, p47). International businesses find themselves under increasing scrutiny in a number of areas which go beyond the narrow conception of business as a generator of profits for shareholders (Friedman, 1970). Research shows that the range of social issues that businesses are required to address has widened to encompass ethical and moral considerations, social and working conditions, environmental concerns, and sustainable development issues (Kolk, 2016). While this body of research has helped to clarify the meanings of CSR (Schrempf, 2012) and has offered a variety of conceptual frameworks for exploring such concerns (Chen, 2016; Frynas & Yamahaki, 2016; Lund-Thomsen & Lindgreen, 2014), one area of continuing puzzlement is defining the scope of CSR, particularly within multinational enterprises (Ameshi et al., 2007; Danzer, 2011; Mares, 2010; Phillips and Caldwell, 2005). Scope of CSR refers to the extent to which responsibility can be attributed across a production system, and in particular, the degree to which responsibility can be attributed to a lead firm. If we consider the economic activity of a business as a series of steps or stages of value added, a production system or value chain describes the variety of activities required to bring a product from conception to completion through the different phases of design, production, marketing and delivery to users. The various activities comprising the process can be contained within a single enterprise, or divided between different enterprises and can be located in a specific economy, or dispersed internationally to a number of different locations. A feature of much of the work on international production systems is its focus on governance (Gereffi, Humphrey, & Sturgeon, 2005).