Managing CSR Globally and Locally: Lessons from a CSR Leader

Corporate Responsibility (CR) is today an essential component of corporate global strategy. CR can bolster the institutional context for market expansion (Porter and Kramer 2006); fill institutional voids (Tarun, et.al. 2005); or facilitate market entry as a component of non-market strategy (Baron 2006). Yet, in fulfilling these functions, CR may need to be highly sensitive to local contexts. How can transnational firms organize CR so as to maximize efficiencies from globalization and to minimize the fragmentation of corporate organizational cultures? Bartlett and Ghoshal (1989) provide a framework for analyzing the way that corporations coordinate global and local functions. We build on this framework in a case study of Novo Nordisk and its approach to determining global and local CR policies and procedures with regard to its China and United States subsidiaries. Our findings suggest that it is important for companies to define a common set of organizational norms. In addition, CR need to be sensitive to local institutional contexts, but learning from subsidiary experience is important and lends itself to standardization and replication of initiatives across market contexts.