Dr Shuna Shu Ham Ho, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate political activity (CPA) are nonmarket strategies that help a multinational corporation (MNC) to legitimise socio-politically. Regarding social license (SL) and legal license (LL) as social and political legitimacies, this study responds to a call for research by examining the complementarity, or tension, between CSR and CPA for achieving these strategic outcomes in a developed country with relatively strong institutions. Based on social contract and deliberative democracy theories, this study hypothesises that high CSR and low CPA are necessary for attaining SL, but low CSR and high CPA are sufficient for obtaining LL. Using necessary condition analysis (NCA), this study finds empirical support with a sample of MNCs mining at various sites within Australia, which is a deliberatively democratic country. Findings suggest that MNCs striking a balance between social and political legitimisations under deliberative democracy must maximise CSR, and meanwhile, optimise CPA owing to tension.
Speaker bio
Shuna S. H. Ho is an Assistant Professor of Strategy (International Business) from the Rowe School of Business, Faculty of Management, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada. Her research interests lie in nonmarket strategy, economic geography, and digital technology of multinational corporations. Her paper on the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and “social license” (SL) has won the Temple/AIB Best Paper Award at the Academy of International Business (AIB) Annual Meeting in 2021. A related paper of hers on the conditions of CSR and corporate political activity (CPA) for SL and legal license (LL) has also won the Peter J. Buckley & Pervez N. Ghauri Prize for the Best Early Career Researcher Paper at the Academy of International Business United Kingdom and Ireland (AIB-UKI) Conference in 2022. She has published in the Strategic Management Journal and the Journal of Management Studies.
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Event timings
Date:
6 December 2022
Start Time:
12:30
End Time:
14:00