Seeking Moral Legitimacy through Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from Chinese Manufacturing Multinationals
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Literature Review and Hypothesis Development
2.1. Organizational Legitimacy
2.2. Corporate Social Responsibility and Gaining Moral Legitimacy
2.2.1. Government-Related CSR
2.2.2. Customer-Related CSR
2.2.3. Community-Related CSR
2.3. Moderating Effect of Institutional Distance
3. Research Design
3.1. Sample and Data Collection
3.2. Description of the Sample
3.3. Variables and Measurement
3.3.1. Corporate Social Responsibility
3.3.2. Moral Legitimacy
3.3.3. Institutional Distance
3.3.4. Control Variables
3.4. Validity and Reliability Test
3.5. Common Method Bias Assessment
3.6. Regression Model
4. Empirical Results
4.1. CSR and Gaining Moral Legitimacy
4.2. Testing the Moderating Effect of Institutional Distance
4.3. Other Results
5. Conclusions and Implications
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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N | % | N | % | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Information of MNCs | |||||
Scale of overseas investment | Years engaged in international business | ||||
Less than USD 1 million | 113 | 37.5% | Less than 3 years | 144 | 47.5% |
USD 1–5 million | 102 | 33.6% | 3–5 years | 87 | 28.7% |
USD 5–10 million | 48 | 15.7% | 6–10 years | 57 | 18.8% |
USD 10–50 million | 27 | 8.8% | Over 10 years | 15 | 5.0% |
Over USD 50 million | 13 | 4.4% | |||
Information of subsidiaries overseas | |||||
Established year | Location | ||||
1 year | 60 | 19.8% | Asia | 90 | 29.7% |
2 years | 90 | 29.7% | Europe | 45 | 14.9% |
3 years | 66 | 21.8% | Northern America | 27 | 8.9% |
4 years | 57 | 18.8% | Southern America | 15 | 5.0% |
5 years | 30 | 9.9% | Africa | 108 | 35.6% |
Oceania | 18 | 5.9% | |||
Number of employees | Entry mode | ||||
Less than 10 | 58 | 19.2% | Wholly owned subsidiaries (WOS) | 128 | 42.4% |
11–30 | 76 | 25.2% | Joint venture | 175 | 57.6% |
31–50 | 55 | 18.2% | |||
51–100 | 71 | 23.3% | |||
Over 100 | 43 | 14.1% |
Corporate Social Responsibility (1 = Totally Disagree, 5 = Totally Agree) |
---|
Government (GOV)
Customer (CUS)
Community (COM)
|
Moral Legitimacy (1 = Totally Disagree, 5 = Totally Agree) |
|
Items in CSR Subscale | Items in Moral Legitimacy Subscale | ||
---|---|---|---|
Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measurement with sampling sufficient | 0.763 | 0.710 | |
Bartlett’s test of sphericity | Approx. Chi-Square | 698.645 | 90.395 |
Df | 120.000 | 3.000 | |
Sig. | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Mean | SD | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. GOV | 2.980 | 1.229 | 0.916 | |||
2. CUS | 3.346 | 1.022 | 0.205 | 0.840 | ||
3. COM | 3.574 | 0.896 | 0.050 | 0.151 | 0.873 | |
4. LEG | 3.544 | 1.022 | 0.091 | 0.263 | 0.213 | 0.843 |
Variables | Measures | Factor Loading | Cronbach’s Alpha | CR | AVE |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
GOV | A1 | 0.962 | 0.826 | 0.912 | 0.839 |
A2 | 0.867 | ||||
CUS | B2 | 0.877 | 0.809 | 0.878 | 0.706 |
B3 | 0.844 | ||||
B1 | 0.798 | ||||
COM | C2 | 0.897 | 0.705 | 0.865 | 0.763 |
C1 | 0.849 | ||||
LEG | D1 | 0.867 | 0.797 | 0.880 | 0.711 |
D2 | 0.847 | ||||
D3 | 0.814 |
χ2 | df | χ2/df | RMSEA | TLI | CFI | NFI | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Model 1 | 28.409 | 29 | 0.980 | 0.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 0.919 |
Model 2 | 125.320 | 32 | 3.916 | 0.171 | 0.571 | 0.695 | 0.643 |
Model 3 | 63.902 | 32 | 1.997 | 0.100 | 0.853 | 0.896 | 0.818 |
Model 4 | 66.958 | 32 | 2.092 | 0.105 | 0.839 | 0.886 | 0.809 |
Model 5 | 131.370 | 34 | 3.864 | 0.169 | 0.579 | 0.682 | 0.626 |
Model 6 | 207.310 | 35 | 5.923 | 0.222 | 0.276 | 0.437 | 0.409 |
Variables | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SIZE | −0.243 ** (−2.391) | −0.175 ** (−2.202) | −0.236 ** (−2.342) | −0.197 * (−1.936) | −0.243 ** (−2.556) | −0.198 ** (−2.100) |
AGE | 0.266 ** (2.603) | 0.166 * (1.695) | 0.243 ** (2.366) | 0.250 ** (2.480) | 0.205 ** (2.124) | 0.186 * (1.901) |
MOD | −0.278 ** (−2.403) | −0.254 ** (−2.305) | −0.247 ** (−2.114) | −0.221 * (−1.896) | −0.365 *** (−3.937) | −0.338 *** (−3.645) |
CSR | 0.193 ** (2.025) | |||||
GOV | 0.146 (1.507) | 0.121 (1.337) | ||||
CUS | 0.211 ** (2.115) | 0.188 ** (2.032) | ||||
COM | 0.198 ** (2.053) | 0.162 * (1.678) | ||||
N | 303 | 303 | 303 | 303 | 303 | 303 |
R2 | 0.234 | 0.327 | 0.253 | 0.270 | 0.302 | 0.360 |
Variables | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
SIZE | −0.173 ** (−2.156) | −0.260 ** (−2.600) | −0.206 ** (−2.050) | −0.230 ** (−2.361) | −0.195 ** (−1.998) |
AGE | 0.167 * (1.687) | 0.245 ** (2.440) | 0.217 ** (2.181) | 0.221 ** (2.150) | 0.204 ** (1.991) |
MOD | −0.254 ** (−2.269) | −0.227 ** (−2.198) | −0.201 * (−1.909) | −0.368 *** (−3.780) | −0.322 *** (−3.302) |
CSR | 0.192 ** (1.989) | ||||
GOV | 0.139 (0.146) | 0.098 (0.973) | |||
CUS | 0.212 ** (2.119) | 0.203 ** (2.081) | |||
COM | 0.205 ** (2.067) | 0.181 * (1.848) | |||
INS | 0.015 (0.196) | 0.027 (0.286) | 0.074 (0.760) | 0.072 (0.690) | 0.045 (0.478) |
CSR * INS | 0.096 (0.594) | ||||
GOV * INS | 0.171 * (1.780) | 0.189 * (2.025) | |||
CUS * INS | 0.164 * (1.744) | 0.137 * (1.734) | |||
COM * INS | 0.001 (0.010) | 0.001 (0.018) | |||
N | 303 | 303 | 303 | 303 | 303 |
R2 | 0.329 | 0.290 | 0.277 | 0.316 | 0.382 |
Effect | SE | t | p | LLCI | ULCI | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
focal predictor-GOV | ||||||
−1 SD | −0.033 | 0.141 | −0.239 | 0.812 | −0.314 | 0.247 |
Mean | 0.139 | 0.100 | 1.464 | 0.147 | −0.050 | 0.329 |
+1 SD | 0.313 | 0.132 | 2.378 | 0.019 | 0.052 | 0.575 |
focal predictor-CUS | ||||||
−1 SD | 0.045 | 0.138 | 0.329 | 0.743 | −0.228 | 0.319 |
Mean | 0.212 | 0.100 | 2.119 | 0.037 | 0.013 | 0.410 |
+1 SD | 0.378 | 0.138 | 2.730 | 0.007 | 0.103 | 0.653 |
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Zhang, Q.; de Vries, A. Seeking Moral Legitimacy through Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from Chinese Manufacturing Multinationals. Sustainability 2022, 14, 5245. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095245
Zhang Q, de Vries A. Seeking Moral Legitimacy through Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from Chinese Manufacturing Multinationals. Sustainability. 2022; 14(9):5245. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095245
Chicago/Turabian StyleZhang, Qiaowen, and Annalien de Vries. 2022. "Seeking Moral Legitimacy through Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from Chinese Manufacturing Multinationals" Sustainability 14, no. 9: 5245. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095245