School Brown Bag: Frauke Steglich (GEP visitor, PhD student Kiel)

Corporate social responsibility in global value chains: the role of downstreamness and stakeholders’ demand (with Finn Ole Semrau)

Abstract:  The occurrence of negative social and environmental externalities within global value chains (GVCs) fuels rejection of globalisation all over the world and firms face a risk of reputation losses if they do not take into account stakeholders’ preferences in their social performance along GVCs. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) appears as a promising tool to respond on external pressure and to signal a good-will towards sustainable production. We contribute to the understanding of the drivers of firms’ engagement in CSR in emerging markets. To this end, we employ panel data of the Indian economy, which allows us to observe monetary spending on CSR. New to the literature, we provide insights on how firms’ GVC position relate to their CSR engagement and expect that firms’ degree of visibility affects their incentive to engage in CSR. We find that firms in more downstream positions in GVCs, and accordingly operating in consumer-oriented industries, spend more on CSR.

Lunch will be provided from 12.30pm.