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The Spirits of CSR: Senior Executive Perceptions of the Role of the Firm in Society in Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and the United States

Journal Article
The authors report their findings on cross-societal variations in values concerning Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) held by senior executives from five economies. The authors find that executives in all five economies are concerned with the roles of their firms in society, with those in Japan most so and those in Hong Kong least so. However, executives in each context have different conceptualizations of how firms contribute to society. The data suggest variation along three dimensions: implicit versus explicit CSR, stakeholder-oriented versus production-oriented CSR within implicit CSR and different main stakeholders within stakeholder-oriented CSR. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for future research on CSR and for comparative business systems.