When does corporate social responsibility pay off? the impact of the country-level institutionalization of CSR

The literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has not yet provided a univocal answer to an important question, i.e., when does corporate social responsibility pay off? Drawing up institutional theory, this study contributes to the CSR literature through exploring the CSR-CFP (corporate financial performance) relationship as being moderated by the country-level institutionalization of CSR. We hypothesize that the country-level institutionalization of CSR negatively impacts firms’ capability of capitalizing on their CSR efforts to stimulate financial performance. The results based on IMSS VI support our hypothesis that firms in countries where CSR is highly institutionalized generally find it more difficult to capitalize on their CSR efforts than their counterparts in countries where CSR is not yet institutionalized. The finding helps to account for the mixed results on the CSR-CFP relationship.