“Teaching the Sushi Chef”: Hybridization Work and CSR Integration in a Japanese Multinational Company

Journal of Business Ethics volume 148, pages625–645(2018)Cite this article

Abstract

While corporate social responsibility (CSR) is recognized as taking on various national meanings and practices, research has not sufficiently investigated how multinational companies (MNC) simultaneously achieve global CSR integration and local CSR adaptation. Building on a qualitative case study carried out at ASICS, an MNC headquartered in Japan, we show how this organizational dilemma may be solved through hybridization work, a form of institutional work performed by CSR managers in subsidiaries to combine and adapt different institutional approaches to CSR. By developing the notion of hybridization work, we contribute by (1) revealing a set of practices that contribute to institutional change within organizations and (2) enriching the study of CSR organizational change and international business by showing how hybridization Work leads to a greater organizational integration between core and periphery, and by identifying the triggering factors for subsidiary initiative in CSR.

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Fig. 1

Notes

  1. 1.

    Oyama San was Asics Europe CEO between 2000 and 2005. Today he is Asics Group CEO. He is the son of ASICS’s founder.

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    Aurélien Acquier, Valentina Carbone & Valérie Moatti

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  1. Aurélien Acquier
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  2. Valentina Carbone
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Correspondence to Aurélien Acquier.

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This research has received the financial support of the Société Générale/ESCP Europe Research Chair “Organizations, Leadership and Society”.

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Acquier, A., Carbone, V. & Moatti, V. “Teaching the Sushi Chef”: Hybridization Work and CSR Integration in a Japanese Multinational Company. J Bus Ethics 148, 625–645 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-3007-4

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Keywords

  • CSR
  • Multinational company (MNC)
  • Headquarter-subsidiaries relationships
  • Institutional work
  • Hybridization
  • Change agents
  • International business