Abstract
The question of how multinational enterprises (MNEs) respond to local CSR expectations
remains salient, also in the context of many African governments’ attempts to define and regulate
business responsibilities. What determines whether MNEs respond to such local, state-driven
expectations as congruent with their global commitment to CSR? Adopting an institutional logics
perspective, we argue that a higher global CSR commitment will lead to higher local responsiveness
when regulatory distance is low, but it will lead to lower local responsiveness when regulatory distance
is high. We find support for our hypothesis using data on 93 MNEs’ responses to the South African
state’s Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment policy. We thus contribute to the global-local CSR
literature and show how MNEs’ local CSR responsiveness will not only be shaped by the local context,
but also their home country and firm-internal environments.