Abstract
Although corporate social innovation studies in developing countries acknowledge the importance of firm resources and capabilities for attaining social goals, they overlook the way in which these interact with broader institutions to generate successful outcomes. We address this gap by exploring the relationship between firm resources-capabilities and institutions that is conducive to meeting both business and social interests in developing countries. By employing a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of corporate social innovation projects performed by joint ventures of Dutch SMEs and their local partners in developing countries, we show that firm resources and/or capabilities complement strong institutions in these countries. Corporate social innovation can also be facilitated by firm capabilities in running highly legitimate projects that substitute institutional voids in these economies, attesting to multiple paths that corporations can take to achieve social innovation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 589-605 |
| Journal | Journal of Business Ethics |
| Volume | 181 |
| Early online date | 7 Sept 2021 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:There are also two configurations (5 and 6) where we observe a substitutive relationship between firm capabilities and institutional voids. Projects with a low level of financial commitment achieve CSI successfully where voids are substituted by high legitimacy and previous experience in combination with either long time spent on the current project (configuration 5) or a majority partnership (configuration 6). This association is independent of the level of development of the host country. The latter is observed in a project that entails reestablishing safe and clean drinking water to people residing in the north of Rwanda. The funding received was one and a half times what was contributed by the partners themselves. The partners experienced institutional voids in product markets and the regulatory structure. However, the project was supported by the Dutch embassy, drew on relational capital built through previous experience and was governed by a majority partnership held by the Dutch partner.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
Funding
There are also two configurations (5 and 6) where we observe a substitutive relationship between firm capabilities and institutional voids. Projects with a low level of financial commitment achieve CSI successfully where voids are substituted by high legitimacy and previous experience in combination with either long time spent on the current project (configuration 5) or a majority partnership (configuration 6). This association is independent of the level of development of the host country. The latter is observed in a project that entails reestablishing safe and clean drinking water to people residing in the north of Rwanda. The funding received was one and a half times what was contributed by the partners themselves. The partners experienced institutional voids in product markets and the regulatory structure. However, the project was supported by the Dutch embassy, drew on relational capital built through previous experience and was governed by a majority partnership held by the Dutch partner.
Keywords
- Corporate social innovation
- Developing countries
- fs/QCA
- Institutional voids
- Partnerships