Home-country institutions and corporate social responsibility of emerging economy multinational enterprises: The belt and road initiative as an example

This paper examines the impact of home country institutions on corporate social responsibility (CSR) of multinational enterprises from emerging markets (EM-MNEs). Taking the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as an example and using a sample with 2052 firm-year observations from China over the period 2008–2018, we find that the BRI exerts a positive and significant effect on overall CSR of Chinese MNEs involved in the BRI and the positive effect is stronger for Chinese state-owned MNEs. In addition, only two dimensions of CSR (Employee Relations and Products) are improved significantly under the pressure of BRI. Finally, we examine the interactive effect of home- and host- country institutions on Chinese MNEs’ CSR and find the positive impact of the BRI on MNEs’ CSR performance is stronger in host countries with a higher level of CSR related institutional pressure. These results provide practical suggestions for the Chinese government and MNEs to further improve CSR under the BRI, and enrich our understanding of the interactive effect between home- and host-country institutions on enhancing Chinese MNEs’ reputation and promoting regional cooperation with countries along the BRI.