TITLE:
Corporate Social Responsibilities and Unethical Decisions—Do Cultural and Social Values and Political Philosophies Make a Difference?
AUTHORS:
Horacio De La Cruz Jr.
KEYWORDS:
Corporate Social Responsibility, Collectivism, Individualism, Unethical Management, Cultural Influence, Decision-Making
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Industrial and Business Management,
Vol.12 No.8,
August
11,
2022
ABSTRACT: In recent years, the
frequent occurrence of corporate scandals in Chinese companies has upturned the question of why top
management teams in a country with collectivist values, which stress a
group-oriented outlook, would make decisions that do not consider everyone
affected by them. Previews literature
suggested that cultural values and political ideology influence top corporate
managers’ choice of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy for their firms through their CSR mindset. Reviewing
environmental issues and cases in
countries with different cultural, social, and political identities and
philosophies, this study investigates the validity of these arguments. The
study has adopted the traditional literature review approach to
developing a discussion about the influence of cultural values, philosophies,
and socio-political systems on CSR. Nineteen scholarly articles were consulted
to establish the connection between CSR and
cultures, with eleven selected for this paper, much of which reached
conclusions based on interviews. The use of the framework presented here can potentially improve our understanding
of the collectivist and individualist philosophies and how they influence CSR
and top managers’ ethical decisions. However,
much work remains to be done. Specifically, new theory development work and empirical research are both
necessary.