The corporate social performance dilemma

There is an emergent wave of multinational corporations (MNCs) entering low-income markets in developing countries. MNCs' operations in low-income African markets become part of the trend of increased corporate emphasis on corporate social responsibility (CSR). This chapter argues that the goal duality of legitimacy and growth is likely to affect MNCs' corporate social performance. It shows that based mainly on institutional theory, it is reasonable to expect the managerial capabilities necessary for achieving the dual goal of legitimacy and growth to be situated in different geographic and hierarchical locations in MNCs' organisational structures. The chapter illustrates this reasoning, and analyses its effects on MNCs' corporate social performance, in qualitative case study of the Swedish–Swiss multinational Asea Brown Boveri, and its rural electrification project, Access to Electricity, in Tanzania. Based on the case findings, it also argues that MNCs face the corporate social performance dilemma of needing to achieve irreconcilable social performances for realising the dual goal of legitimacy and growth.