Abstract
In this article, our aim is to examine the difference between the corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice of the multinational companies (MNCs) and of the domestic companies operating in Serbia, as well as the influence of internal self-regulations such as statements of corporate values and codes of conduct, and external self-regulations such as the implementation of the ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 standards on CSR practice. The CSR practice is observed in five CSR areas: employee relations, customer relations, environmental practice, community and social involvement, and transparency in business activity. The findings indicate that the CSR practice of the MNCs is significantly different in comparison to domestic companies only in the area of employee relations. Furthermore, the overall results suggest that internal self-regulations have more influence on CSR practice than the implementation of generic management system standards. However, the existence of transparent corporate values, codes of conduct and implemented management systems according to ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 standards does not prove to be strong predictors of CSR performance.
Abbreviations
- CSR:
-
corporate social responsibility
- MNCs:
-
multinational companies
- QMSs:
-
Quality Management System standards
- EMSs:
-
Environmental Management System standard
References
Adamovich, Lj. S.: 1997, ‘Trends in the Global Economy and Their Implications for Yugoslavia’, International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society II(2), 283-299.
Agatiello, O.: 2008, ‘Ethical governance: beyond good practices and standards’, Management Decision 46(8), 1132-1145.
Bernardo, M., Casadesus, M., Karapetrovic, S. and Heras, I. 2009, ‘How integrated are environmental, quality and other standardized management systems? - An empirical study’, Journal of Cleaner Production 17, 742–750.
Castka P. and Balzarova M. A.: 2008, ‘The impact of ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 on standardisation of social responsibility—an inside perspective’, International Journal of Production Economics 113, 74–87.
Chapple, W. and Moon, J.: 2005, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility in Asia: A Seven-Country Study of CSR Web Site Reporting’, Business & Society 44 (4), 415.
Cleek M. A. and Leonard S. L.: 1998, ‘Can Corporate Codes of Ethics Influence Behaviour?’, Journal of Business Ethics 17, 619–630.
Crewson, P.: 2008, ‘Applied Statistic Handbook: Coefficient for Measuring Association’, www.acastat.com/statbook/contents.htm.
Edwards, T., P. Marginson, P. Edwards, A. Ferner and O. Tregaskis: 2007, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility in Multinational Companies: Management Initiatives or Negotiated Agreements? (International Institute for Labour Studies, Geneva, Switzerland), pp. 1-27. http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inst/publications/discussion/dp18507.pdf.
Egyedi, T. M. and S. Toffaletti: 2008, ‘Standardising Social Responsibility: Analysing ISO Representation Issues from SME Perspectives’, Proceedings of the 13th EURAS Workshop on Standardisation, Sweden (European Academy for Standardisation), pp. 121–135
Elms, H.: 2006, ‘Corporate (and stakeholder) responsibility in Central and Eastern Europe’, International Journal of Emerging Markets 1(3), 203-211.
European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT): 2001, ERT Position on Corporate Social Responsibility and Response to Commission Green Paper ‘Promoting a European Framework for Corporate Social Responsibility’, http://www.ert.be/doc/0050.pdf.
Evan, W.M.: 1998, ‘International codes of conduct for multinational corporations’, in Duska R. E (eds.), Education, Leadership and Business Ethics (Kluwer Academic Publishers), pp 249-272.
Final Background Paper Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Citizenship in the Arab World (FBP CSR Cairo 2007): 2007, ‘Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Citizenship in the Arab World, Cairo, Egypt, 2007’, http://www.csr-weltweit.de/uploads/tx_jpdownloads/FinalBackgroundPaper_CSRConference_Cairo.pdf.
Gotzamani K. D.: 2005, ‘The implications of the new ISO 9000:2000 standards for certified organizations A review of anticipated benefits and implementation pitfalls’, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management 54 (8), 645-657.
Gugler, P. and J. Y. J. Shi: 2008, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility for Developing Country Multinational Corporations: Lost War in Pertaining Global Competitiveness?’, Journal of Business Ethics. doi:10.1007/s10551-008-9801-5
Hair J.F., Black W.C., Babin B.J. and Anderson R.E.:2009, ‘Multivariate Data Analysis – a global perspective’ (Pearson Education Inc., New Jersey).
Harlow, L.: 2005, The Essence of Multivariate Thinking – Basic Themes and Methods (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, New Jersey), 136 pp
Hillman, A.L.: 1994, ‘The transition from socialism: An overview from a political economy perspective’, European Journal of Political Economy 10, 191-225.
Hoven Stohs J. and Brannick T.: 1999, ‘Codes and Conduct: Predictors of Irish Managers’ Ethical Reasoning’, Journal of Business Ethics 22, 311–326.
International Standardisation Organisation: 2004, ISO 14001:2004, Environmental Management Systems – Requirements with Guidance for Use, 5 pp
International Standardisation Organisation: 2005, ISO 9000:2005 Quality Management System – Fundamentals and Vocabulary, 13 pp
International Standardisation Organisation (ISO): 2009a, ‘Management System Standards – Cathalog’, http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/management_standards/iso_9000_iso_14000/qmp/qmp-1.htm.
International Standardisation Organisation (ISO): 2009b, ‘Management System Standards Cathalog’, http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/management_standards/iso_9000_iso_14000/business_benefits_of_iso_14001.htm.
ISO 26000 – Working Draft, Version 4.2 (WD4.2): 2008, The 6th Plenary Meeting of the ISO/TMB/WG SR (International Organization for Standardization/Technical Managing Board/Working Group for Social Responsibility), ISO/TMB/WG SR – IDTF N070 rev1 – Santiago WG Key Topics Discussion Document Santiago, September 2008
Karapetrovic, S. and Casadesu, M.: 2009, ‘Implementing environmental with other standardized management systems: Scope, sequence, time and integration’, Journal of Cleaner Production 17, 533–540.
Kilcullen, M. and Kooistra, J.O.: 1999, ‘At least do no harm: sources on the changing role of business ethics and corporate social responsibility’, Reference Services Review 27(2), 158-178.
Korhonen, J.: 2006, ‘Editorial: are sustainability science research societies strategic?’, Progress in Industrial Ecology - An International Journal 3(5), 409-417.
Kuljic, T.: 2003, `Yugoslavia's Workers Self-Management', http://www.republicart.net/disc/aeas/
Levis J.: 2006, ‘Adoption of corporate social responsibility codes by multinational companies’, Journal of Asian Economic 17, 50-55.
Nargundkar, R.: 2004, Marketing Research: Text and Cases (Tata McGraw-Hill, New Delhi), 205 pp
O’Dwyer, B. and Madden G.: 2006, ‘Ethical Codes of Conduct in Irish Companies: A Survey of Code of Content and Enforcement Procedures’, Journal of Business Ethics 63, 217-236.
O’Riordan L. and Fairbrass J.: 2008, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Models and Theories in Stakeholder Dialogue’, Journal of Business Ethics 83, 745-758.
Panapanaan, V.M., L. Linnaned, M. Karvonen and V.H. Phan: 2003, ‘Roadmapping Corporate Social Responsibility in Finnish Companies’, Journal of Business Ethics 44, 133-148.
Prout, J.: 2006, ‘Viewpoint – Corporate responsibility in the global economy: a business case’, Society and Business Review 1 (2), 184-191.
Schwartz M.: 2001,’The Nature of the Relationship between Corporate Codes of Ethics and Behaviour’, Journal of Business Ethics 32, 247–262.
Singh, A., S. Kundu and W. Foster: 2005, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility: MNCs to SMEs’, Working Paper, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York, NY
Somers M.J.: 2001, ‘Ethical Codes of Conduct and Organizational Context: A Study of the Relationship Between Codes of Conduct, Employee Behaviour and Organizational Values’, Journal of Business Ethics 30, 185–195.
Sullivan R.: 2005, ‘Code Integration: Alignment or Conflict?’, Journal of Business Ethics 59, 9–25.
Svensson G. and Wood G.: 2008, ‘International standards of business conduct: framework and illustration’, European Business Review 20(3), 260-274.
Tricker, R. and B. Sherring-Lucas: 2001, ISO 9001:2000 in Brief (Butterworth-Heinemann, Great Britain), 15 pp
UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs: 2007, ‘CSR and Developing Countries – What Scope for Government Action?’, Sustainable Development Inno- vations Briefs
Upchurch, M. and Cicmil, S.: 2004, ‘The political economy of management ‘knowledge transfer: Some insights from experience in Serbia and Montenegro’, South-East Europe Review 2, 101 - 120.
Visser, W.: 2008, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility in Developing countries’, In A. Crane, A. McWilliams, D. Matten, J. Moon & D. Siegel (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Corporate Social Responsibility, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp 473-479.
Wood, G.: 2002, `A Partnership Model of Corporate Ethics', Journal of Business Ethics 40, 61–73
Wood, G. and M. Rimmer: 2003. Codes of Ethics: What are they Really and What Should they be?. International Journal of Value-Based Management 16:181–195.
World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD): 2000, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility: Making Good Business Sense’, www.wbcsdch.org.
Wotruba T. R., Chonko L. B. and Terry W. L.: 2001, ‘The Impact of Ethics Code Familiarity on Manager Behaviour’, Journal of Business Ethics 33, 59–69.
Zeng, S.X., Shi, J. J. and Lou G.X.: 2007, ‘A synergetic model for implementing an integrated management system: an empirical study in China’, Journal of Cleaner Production 15, 1760-1767.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mijatovic, I.S., Stokic, D. The Influence of Internal and External Codes on CSR Practice: The Case of Companies Operating in Serbia. J Bus Ethics 94, 533–552 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0280-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0280-0