Local or global: Analyzing the internationalization of social responsibility of corporate foundations

The purpose of this paper is to explore the link between the globalization/adaptation debate and corporate foundation activity within a small subset of such foundations. In the light of this debate, the study analyzes the corporate social responsibility (CSR) approaches of this sample of corporate-owned foundations using the tri-dimensional CSR research model of Arthaud-Day (2005) to articulate the perspective, content and strategic orientations of the companies.

The study selects three different corporate foundations based on internationalization scale and field of activities. A content analysis methodology is applied to the data collected from the official web sites of 24 corporate foundations.

The analysis results show a general compatibility between the subsidiaries and the main branches of the corporate foundations, at least on the conceptual level. However, the practices of CSR activities, targeted stakeholders or content domains differ at the operational level. Nevertheless, local governance is still not totally independent, especially in terms of received funds. Therefore, this study concludes that the internationalization strategies of these corporate foundations are still at a formative stage of transnationalization.

The study explores the three selected international companies and their corporate foundations. Future studies may extend the number of selected industries and companies. Together with increased coverage, future survey studies may help explain the global or local orientations of corporate foundations’ CSR in different domains.

Corporate foundations may extend their transnational strategies to further stages by differentiating between those units that should be managed on a global scale and those that should be managed by local authorities. They may balance the amount of investment in different regions while adopting collaborative governance models to respond to regions where grant applications are not an easy tool for stakeholders to use.

Given the relatively paucity of CSR studies with an international focus, this study contributes to the standardization or localization debate in the international business literature. The study’s originality lies in its attempt to operationalize the theoretical research model and through its use of corporate foundations as the unit of analysis.