Corporate Social Responsibility and Culture : A study of a Swedish Multinational Corporation’s CSR strategy in terms of labour policies in East China and its relation to cultural differences

Abstract: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has in later years gained increased awareness and the business environment has become more international where multinational corporations (MNCs) are encountering many different national cultures. Along with this development, it has become important for MNCs to take the cultures of the foreign markets into consideration when deciding on what strategy approach to adopt towards CSR as different cultures have different expectations on corporations. Among the various aspects of CSR, this thesis has only focused on the labour issues, which are typically addressed by companies through establishing voluntary Codes of Conduct with the aim of improving the working conditions and labour standards. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the national cultural differences between Sweden and East China, and analyse if these differences influences whether Swedish MNCs take an adaptation, standardization or glocalization strategy towards CSR in regards to the labour policies when operating in Sweden and East China respectively. By gathering secondary data and primary data through an in-depth, qualitative interview with Company Red, the purpose of this thesis was fulfilled. The results show that Company Red applies a standardisation strategy when implementing their labour policies, while small additions are still allowed in some cases when operating under different cultural contexts. Moreover, the results point to the conclusion that adaptation of labour policies may be more in terms of adapting the way of communicating and implementing the policies to the needs and expectations of the host country, rather than adaptation of the actual Code of Conduct itself.