ABSTRACT
Recently, corporate social responsibility has received considerable attention from both academics and practitioners (see Durant 2006; Graafland et al. 2003; Griffin and Mahon 1997; Jones 1997; Maignan and Ferrell 2001; Maignan and Ralston 2002; Smith 1996; Waddock and Graves 1997). This may be explained by the fact that, although some studies postulated a negative relationship (e.g. Vance 1975) or no relationship (e.g. Aupperle et al. 1985) between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business performance, more recent studies provided the empirical evidence that there is a positive relationship between those two constructs (Abratt and Sacks 1988; Russo and Fouts 1997; Waddock and Graves 1997). In addition, the empirical evidence suggests that CSR could have other benefits for a firm. For instance, a recent survey (Smith 1996) found that 88 per cent of consumers in the study were more likely to buy from a company that is socially responsible, suggesting that CSR could be an effective marketing tool in the future. It is also reported that corporate social responsibility could have positive effects in helping companies to attract more talented and committed employees (Maignan et al. 1999). In contrast to a growing body of research supporting the importance of CSR, the issues relating to the determinants and development of CSR are still relatively under-researched. In addition, most of the research to date has been conducted in the developed countries, mainly in the US and Europe. Consequently, there is limited knowledge about how CSR is perceived and implemented by companies in developing countries (Al-Khatib et al. 2004).
