How different are corporate social responsibility motives in a developing country? Insights from a study of Indian agribusiness firms

• Author: Olga Kuznetsova,Andrei Kuznetsov,Thankom Arun,Anup Raj
• Published date: 01 March 2019
• Date: 01 March 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/tie.22016

AREA PERSPECTIVES: ASIA AND SOUTH-EAST ASIA

How different are corporate social responsibility motives

in a developing country? Insights from a study of Indian

agribusiness firms

Anup Raj

1

| Andrei Kuznetsov

2

| Thankom Arun

3

| Olga Kuznetsova

4

1

Narsee Monji Institute of Management

Studies (NMIMS), Hyderabad, India

2

Lancashire School of Business and Enterprise,

University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK

3

Essex Business School, University of Essex,

Colchester, UK

4

Manchester Metropolitan University Business

School, Manchester, UK

Correspondence

Andrei Kuznetsov, Lancashire School of

Business and Enterprise, University of Central

Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE, UK.

Email: akuznetsov@uclan.ac.uk

Against the backdrop of increasing foreign direct investment flows in the developing economies

in Asia, the investigation of topical aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the region

increases in importance. We examine the CSR motives of four large indigenous agribusiness

firms in India with a view of assessing the validity of the claim that CSR in this country, com-

pared to developed countries, is influenced substantially more by moral, cultural, and religious

considerations and less by self-interest and profit seeking. Unlike numerous other investigations

of CSR that rely on questionnaires and company reports, our data are drawn from in-depth

interviews and theme analysis revealing some intricate motives behind CSR behavior and busi-

ness conditions that inspire them. Our findings challenge some previously reported results and

indicate that the degree to which such a behavior is affected by the state of economic develop-

ment and cultural differences may be smaller than is often argued.

KEYWORDS

agribusiness, corporate social responsibility, India, stakeholder management

More discoveries have arisen from intense observa-

tion than from statistics applied to large groups.

W. I. B. Beveridge

1|INTRODUCTION

In 2017, developing Asia regained its position as the largest FDI recip-

ient region in the world, followed by the European Union and North

America (UNCTAD, 2018). As the activities of multination companies

(MNCs) in the region intensify, analysis of some under-researched

aspects of the business environment that they face acquires a new

urgency. One such aspect is the set of informal relations between

business and society that extend beyond normative obligations and

belong to the realm of corporate social responsibility (CSR). In the lit-

erature, there is growing understanding that further progress in the

practices of CSR by MNCs and its conceptualization may be hampered

if due attention is not paid to the dynamism and multiplicity of CSR

contexts (Rasche, Morsing, & Moon, 2017). In this respect, one of the

notable concerns is the absence of systematic studies of CSR in

developing countries despite realization that frameworks and conclu-

sions drawn from experience in developed countries may not neces-

sarily be applicable everywhere (Jamali & Karam, 2016). Repeated

calls are heard urging to overcome the limitations of the “western”

bias in CSR research (e.g., Park & Ghauri, 2015; Pisani, Kourula, Kolk, &

Meijer, 2017). This requires a meticulous buildup of primary evidence

on the instances of CSR in the developing countries and analysis

thereof as there are visible gaps in the knowledge on and the evidence

of CSR behaviors in these countries (Pisani et al., 2017).

In this article, we address some of the shortcomings highlighted in

the literature by investigating one essential aspect of CSR (motives) in

a major developing country in Asia (India) using original microlevel,

that is company-level, data from an important but under-researched

economic sector (agribusiness). We have chosen CSR motives as our

focus because they have emerged as a central and much debated

theme in the literature on corporate strategy and public-corporate

relations (Gautier & Pache, 2015; Ghobadian, Money, & Hillenbrand,

2015). This topic is becoming more prominent in international busi-

ness research in response to MNCs' request for extensive local knowl-

edge as they increasingly use CSR and sustainability investments to

DOI: 10.1002/tie.22016

Thunderbird Int. Bus. Rev. 2019;61:255–265. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tie © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 255