New publication “What drives the dissemination of CSR practices in global value chains? An institutional and psychological perspective”
It is increasingly recognized that a company’s social responsibility no longer ends at its own factory gate but applies along the entire value chain. For example, the German Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains places firms under the obligation to identify, prevent or minimize the risks of human rights violations and damage to the environment for all their suppliers and sub-suppliers. To date, however, there have been hardly any studies on what motivate supply chain professionals in buying firms to cascade corporate social responsibility (CSR) along their global value chain and how CSR practices are implemented by their suppliers.
In our study “What drives the dissemination of CSR practices in global value chains? An institutional and psychological perspective”, Laura Kirste, M.Sc., Dr. Marc Oberhauser (ESCP Madrid) and Prof. Dr. Dirk Holtbrügge find that buyers’ intentions to cascade CSR practices to suppliers is particularly driven by instrumental and relational motives. In contrast, suppliers’ intentions to engage in CSR is largely determined by moral outrage. Moreover, significant effects are revealed for the institutional conditions on buyers’ CSR cascading intentions and on suppliers’ CSR implementation intentions. The misalignment between buyers’ and suppliers’ motives to engage in CSR activities is discussed as a major challenge of cascading CSR practices in GVCs. We derive practical implications for supply chain managers and policy makers.
The study has just been accepted for publication in International Business Review and can be accessed here.