Corporate Social Responsibility in the Russian federation: A contextualised approach

Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR has emerged as a concept for business from within developed, western economies. Such economies are underpinned by functioning institutions, where compliance with regulation is assumed. Recently however, the capacity of this traditional CSR approach, to take account of the different economic and institutional arrangements found nonwestern contexts, has been challenged. It has been argued that CSR research needs to be more contextualised, and that the western interpretation and assumptions about what CSR is and how it is enacted needs to be broadened and challenged to take account of different stages of economic development. With this in mind, this paper presents a contextualised critique of CSR undertaken in the Russian Federation. Based on a qualitative study involving managers within privatised Russian firms, this paper explores the type, nature, and scope of CSR undertaken and the attendant motivation of firms to engage in CSR practice. In so doing, this paper adopts not only a 'beyond compliance' definition, but also seeks to contextualise the CSR experience within Russian firms by taking account of the historical and cultural antecedents of both the Soviet Union and the transition period itself. In so doing we reveal that while the market is driving conventional forms of CSR within some Russian firms, the historical legacy of the both the Soviet and transition period also influences the type and nature of CSR undertaken. Such CSR challenges both the assumptions about the voluntary nature of CSR and what it means for firms to go 'beyond compliance'.