From efficiency to legitimacy: the changing logic of internal CSR in emerging multinationals during internationalization

This paper focuses on internal corporate social responsibility (CSR) (i.e. shareholder responsibility and employee responsibility) changes within emerging-market multinational companies (EMNCs) with a resource constraints perspective and attention-based view, providing a finely variegated analysis of and new insights into the internationalization–CSR relationship. Specifically, as EMNCs’ resource constraints change from high to low and the primary focus shifts during internationalization, their dominant logic moves from efficiency to legitimacy; correspondingly, their internal CSR shows a U-shaped change—first declining and then increasing. This nonlinear model is supported by an empirical test of Chinese listed MNCs from 2013 to 2018. On this basis, the moderating roles of state-owned background and innovation-oriented strategy are examined, as both affect the resource constraints and attention structure of EMNCs during internationalization. We also provide a sensitivity analysis of internationalization’s impact on each dimension of internal CSR and an in-depth discussion of our findings.