Examining the drivers of corporate social responsibility: A national, organizational, and managerial perspective

Nations increasingly demand that organizations take more progressive action on corporate social responsibility (CSR) to address the world’s grand challenges. Scholars have studied how factors at different levels (e.g., national, organizational, and individual) drive CSR and its outcomes to better understand its antecedents. However, most research on the factors determining CSR has remained at a single level, while management and organizational phenomena in general and CSR specifically are determined by factors at different levels and their interactions. This dissertation argues that it is important to use multilevel approaches in studying the antecedents of CSR and merge insights from research at different analytical levels (e.g., national, organizational, and individual) to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the factors driving CSR. Therefore, this dissertation discusses the extant national-, organizational-, and individual-level research on the antecedents of CSR, studies how national- and organizational-level factors influence corporate social performance (CSP), the tactics CSR managers use to sell the need to implement CSR within organizations, and internal factors resulting in a disconnection between CSR policies and practices. This dissertation concludes by discussing the implications for national-, organizational-, and individual-level research on CSR.