A relação entre responsabilidade social corporativa, modo de governança e competitividade: um estudo das multinacionais brasileiras.

Abstract

Theory and practice demonstrate that companies have taken some initiative to include corporate social responsibility (CSR) in their strategy. However, it is not clear whether these initiatives produce the desired results to increase the competitiveness. In this context, the way to govern CSR actions has been presented as a contextual variable that could explain the success, or even the failure, of CSR initiatives. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the relationship between corporate social responsibility strategy, governance mode of CSR actions and their impact on competitiveness. Previous studies analyze the relationship between governance mode, CSR, and competitiveness-the variables considered in this study-based on secondary data from developed countries and only considering the relationship between two of the mentioned variables. However, this study extends this discussion by collecting primary data on the reality of multinational companies from an emerging country. Additionally, it considered the three variables for analysis, based on the Stakeholder Theory. The methodological approach is quantitative approach.The hypotheses was tested using the Structural Equation Modeling. The software used was the SmartPLS 3.0, which tests the structural model using the ordinary least squares method. The survey was conducted with 144 Brazilian multinationals, using a questionnaire as a data collection instrument. The main hypothesis that presented the positive and significant relationship between corporate social responsibility and competitiveness was confirmed. Regarding the governance mode, it was observed the use of different modes by the same multinational, depending on the characteristics of the CSR action that it developed. However, the moderating effect of the variable governance between CSR and competitiveness was not confirmed. This research will present contributions to the literature through the presentation and test of a theoretical-empirical model that relates three complex variables, in a specific scenario (emerging country multinational companies). It also tested and validated three scales for the Brazilian scenario. As well as, it contributes to the practice, by providing managers a comprehensive view of the possibilities of acting in CSR, how to govern such actions and the returns that this practice can generate.