Transitioning from CSR to CSV in a foreign subsidiary in China through temporal decoupling

Abstract

Our qualitative case study explores how Kirin Beer Zhuhai (KBZ), a China based subsidiary of a Japanese multinational corporation, under a mandate from the HQ, changed from embracing corporate social responsibility (CSR) to adopting creating shared value (CSV). This entailed some movement away from projects that were deemed to be about CSR, where there had been an exclusive focus on social rather than economic goals. There were corresponding attempts to adopt projects about CSV, addressing both social and economic goals. Faced with trade-offs between economic and social goals, managers at KBZ appeared to be adopting a temporal form of policy-practice decoupling. Under this, some CSV projects were targeting temporally proximal economic goals along with temporally distal social goals, while other CSV projects were targeting temporally proximal social goals along with temporally distal economic goals. Our main contribution is developing the concept of temporal decoupling as a tool for analyzing dilemmas (e.g., local versus global demands) and resolving trade-offs (e.g., social versus economic goals). Temporal decoupling enabled KBZ to progress toward CSV without resource transfers from the headquarters, with yin-yang balancing as the mechanism, under which competing goals were temporarily traded-off through partial separation, while achieving some synergy through partial integration.