Corporate social responsibility and competitive advantage: A developing country perspective

• Date: 01 July 2019
• Author: Ms Millicent Amponsah,Richard B. Nyuur,Daniel F. Ofori
• Published date: 01 July 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/tie.22065

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Corporate social responsibility and competitive advantage:

A developing country perspective

Richard B. Nyuur

1

| Daniel F. Ofori

2

| Ms Millicent Amponsah

3

1

Reader in Strategic Management and

International Business, Newcastle Business

School, Northumbria University,

Newcastle, UK

2

Department of Organisation and Human

Resource Management, University of Ghana

Business School, Accra, Ghana

3

Department of Management and Human

Resource, Faculty of IT Business, Accra, Ghana

Correspondence

Richard B. Nyuur, Reader in Strategic

Management and International Business,

Newcastle Business School, Northumbria

University, City Campus East 1, Newcastle

Upon Tyne, NE1 8ST, UK.

Email: richard.nyuur@northumbria.ac.uk

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has attracted wider research interests over

recent decades. While some studies have examined the impact of CSR activities on

firm competitive advantage (CA), the findings so far remain contradictory. Moreover,

the role of export orientation, firm strategy, and structure on the association

between CSR and CA has not been explicitly examined. Thus, the purpose of this

study is to examine the moderating role of export orientation, firm strategy, struc-

ture, and firm size on the association between CSR and CA. Using a sample of

179 responses from management staff in organizations across five sectors in a devel-

oping country context of Ghana, the study found positive effects of CSR on CA. The

study contributes to the resource-based view (RBV) scholarship by confirming the

important complementary effect of export orientation and organizational structure as

important resources and capabilities on the CSR–competitiveness relationship. How-

ever, no evidence of a moderating effect of firm strategy, or firm size on the CSR–CA

relationship was found. These findings are instructive, impactful, and enrich the exis-

ting literature on CSR and strategy. Implications for theory and practice are also

discussed.

KEYWORDS

competitive advantage (CA), competitive strategy, corporate social responsibility (CSR), export

orientation, firm structure, Ghana

1|INTRODUCTION

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has attracted substantial

research interest over recent decades examining the issue from differ-

ent angles (Kuada & Hinson, 2012; Long, 2008; Nyuur, Ofori, &

Debrah, 2016; Okpara & Wynn, 2012). Most studies have broadly

acknowledged that CSR leads to sustainable development (Miska,

Szőcs, & Schiffinger, 2018); effective stakeholder management

(Walker, Zhang, & Ni, 2019); employee engagement and retention

(Mushtaq, 2013; Opoku-Dakwa, Chen, & Rupp, 2018); and company

reputation (Aqueveque, Rodrigo, & Duran, 2018; Currás-Pérez, Dolz-

Dolz, Miquel-Romero, & Sánchez-García, 2018; Marin, Rubio, & Maya,

2012; Porter & Kramer, 2011). However, studies that examined the

role of CSR on firm competitiveness have yielded mixed,

contradictory, and inconclusive findings (Flammer, 2018; Hassel, Nils-

son, & Nyquist, 2005; Marin et al., 2012; Nelling & Webb, 2009). Fur-

thermore, some of these studies have examined the issue from a

microindividual-consumer level (Du, Bhattacharya, & Sen, 2011), while

others treated competitiveness as a mediator in the link between CSR

and firm performance (Saeidi, Sofian, Saeidi, Saeidi, & Saaeidi, 2015).

Some recent studies have further indicated that the relationship

between CSR and firm competitiveness is occasioned by other condi-

tions such as the firm strategy, firm size, and industry (Marin et al.,

2012). Martinuzzi and Krumay (2013) also note that the described

linkage of CSR and firm competitiveness is rather vague and requires

further research to shed light on it.

Furthermore, despite the increasing scale, scope, and sophistica-

tion of firms' internationalization activities in recent decades (Boso,

DOI: 10.1002/tie.22065

Thunderbird Int. Bus. Rev. 2019;61:551–564. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tie © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 551