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Journal of Cleaner Production 82 (2014) 192e201

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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An institutional approach to corporate social responsibility in Russia

Matthias S. Fifka a, *, Maryna Pobizhan b, 1

a University Erlangen-Nuernberg, Institute for Economics, Kochstr. 4, 91054 Erlangen, Germanyb University Erlangen-Nuernberg, Institute for International Business and Globalization, Findelgasse 9, 90402 Nürnberg, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 14 May 2013Received in revised form24 June 2014Accepted 29 June 2014Available online 9 July 2014

Keywords:Corporate social responsibilitySustainabilityInstitutional theoryNational business systems approachSustainability reportingRussia

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ49 (0)9131 85 22376E-mail addresses: matthias.fifka@fau.de (M.S. Fifk

com (M. Pobizhan).1 Tel.: þ49 911 5302 296.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.06.0910959-6526/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

a b s t r a c t

Despite the economic importance of the country, corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Russia has notbeen examined extensively yet. Knowledge on how Russian companies perceive and practice CSR isstrongly limited. Thus, the objective of our study is to analyze to what degree the national political andsocio-economic institutions determine CSR practice, and how it is influenced by international factors,such as CSR standards, frameworks, and foreign stakeholder expectations. Based on Whitley's nationalbusiness systems approach, which we use as institutional theory framework, we examine the imple-mentation of CSR in Russia's 50 largest companies. In specific, we investigate the areas of CSR in whichRussian companies are active, what stakeholders they consider, the form and financial extent of theiractivities, the application of international standards, and how reporting is conducted. Our results showthat awareness for CSR has been fostered by the influx of Western business concepts, but the under-standing and practice of CSR is predominantly determined by the country's institutional environment.CSR mostly is an extension of traditional social roles that Russian business has assumed over decades,especially during communist times.

© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

In recent years, corporate social responsibility has become ofincreasing importance in emerging countries (Li et al., 2010; Baskin,2006). However, as Muller and Kolk (2009: 325) point out, theliterature on the topic is still “scant”, as most research still focuseson developed countries (Fifka, 2012). With regard to the so-called“BRIC” countries that often are in the limelight of the discussionon emerging countries, there is a significant asymmetry with re-gard to the studies that have been conducted. Research on CSR inIndia has quite a long tradition (Singh and Ahuja, 1983) and also inrecent years several studies were done (e.g., Sahay, 2004; Chappleand Moon, 2005; Chaudhri and Wang, 2007; Gautam and Singh,2010; Kanchan, 2010). China, too, has been subject to a remark-able number of studies in the last years (e.g., Liu and Anbumozhi,2009; Kolk et al., 2010; Zeng et al., 2010; Guoyou et al., 2013;Noronha et al., 2013). CSR in Brazil, however, has been investi-gated to a lesser degree (e.g., Cappellin and Giuliani, 2004; Young,2004; de Oliveira, 2006; Cavalcanti S�a de Abreu et al., 2012).

; fax: þ49 (0)9131 85 22060.a), maryna.pobizhan@gmail.

Likewise, CSR in Russia has only been examined sporadically.There is wide agreement that significant research gaps still exist(e.g., Kuznetsov et al., 2009; Kuznetsova, 2009; Preuss andBarkemeyer, 2011; Alon et al., 2010), although CSR is regarded tobe of increasing importance in the country (Kuznetsov et al., 2009;Li et al., 2010). This development is predominantly attributed totwo factors: the country's progressing, albeit slow economicliberalization, which shifts responsibilities from the government tothe private economy (Preuss and Barkemeyer, 2011; Alon et al.,2010), and the trend towards a growing awareness for CSR on aglobal scale that also gains hold in emerging economies. AsKuznetsov et al. (2009, p. 37) observe, “Russia, the largest post-communist economy in the world, has not stayed immune to thistrend either.”

Despite the consensus on the increasing prominence of CSR inRussia, there is substantial disagreement on its actual status quo. Liet al. (2010), in a study of the largest 105 companies in the BRICcountries, indicate that CSR is still rather underdeveloped in Russia.Likewise, Baskin (2006, p. 31), who conducted an extensive ex-amination of the CSR practices of 127 leading companies from 21emerging countries, found with regard to Eastern Europe thatcompanies in “Poland, Slovenia, Hungary and Czech Republic showmost evidence of incorporating CR [Corporate Responsibility] ap-proaches”, while Russia is among the countries which “show leastinterest.” Crotty and Rodgers (2012) also came to a rather negative

M.S. Fifka, M. Pobizhan / Journal of Cleaner Production 82 (2014) 192e201 193

conclusion, attesting that the environmental activities, which canbe considered a part of CSR, of the 43 Russian manufacturing firmsin their sample were defensive in nature and merely aimed atavoiding environmental punishment.

However, there are also more positive assessments of the statusquo of CSR in Russia. Preuss and Barkemeyer (2011, p. 371) in theirstudy of 310 companies from industrialized, emerging, and devel-oping countries find that Russia takes a middle position “betweenindustrialized and emerging economies”with regard to the state ofCSR. Polishchuk (2009, p. 74) even states that “CSR has becomefirmly established in the practices of Russian […] companies.”Finally, Kuznetsov et al. (2009) argue that a judgment on the stateof CSR in Russia cannot bemade, because a substantial gap betweenthe CSR efforts of large Russian multinationals and the country'ssmall and medium-sized enterprises (SME) exists. For larger com-panies, however, they attest an increasing interest in profit-relatedCSR issues.

A substantial reason for the differing assessments is the differentconceptualization of CSR applied by the respective authors. WhilePolishchuck (2009) primarily examines regulatory aspects of CSR aswell as philanthropy, Kuznetsov et al. (2009, p. 40) include a largerarray of CSR issues, ranging from “looking after employees” to “jobcreation” and “making a profit”. Preuss and Barkemeyer (2011) inturn applied a broad understanding of CSR. They considered a greatvariety of sustainability-related aspects, using the social, environ-mental, and economic performance indicators defined by the GlobalReporting Initiative as a basis for defining CSR.

As it is the major purpose of our study to examine the under-standing and implementation of CSR in Russia, we also apply abroad definition of CSR. A narrow delineation of the term wouldbear the risk of excluding important themes or practices of CSRsimply because they might not fall within the realm of a narrowdefinition. Thus, we define CSR as the integration of social andenvironmental concerns in the business operations and the re-lationships with stakeholders. This understanding of CSR has beenused in previous studies (e.g., Ciliberti et al., 2008; Jenkins andYakovleva, 2006).

One of the major gaps identified by studies on CSR in Russia (e.g.Preuss and Barkemeyer, 2011; Crotty and Rodgers, 2012) is the rolethat stakeholders e as a reflection of the political and socio-economic environment e play in the CSR activities of Russiancompanies. In this context, Preuss and Barkemeyer (2011) partic-ularly point out a potential differentiation between internal andexternal stakeholders that should be examined. We extend thisapproach by also investigating the consideration of domesticand international stakeholders by Russian companies. Moreover,while several studies have differentiated between industries whenstudying CSR of Russian companies (e.g. Kuznetsov et al., 2009;Alon et al., 2010; Li et al., 2010), none so far has examined poten-tial differences in the CSR due to differing firm-size and differentownership: private and government-owned companies. Finally, thefinancial scope of CSR activities and the application of internationalCSR standards have also not been studied so far.

Addressing these research gaps, the following paper in-vestigates the state of CSR in the largest 50 Russian companies. Itexamines in which forms CSR is practiced by Russian companiesand which stakeholders they consider. This is closely linked to thequestion towhat degree the CSR practice in Russia is determined bythe specific political and socio-economic environment. Further-more, our study examines how CSR reporting is conducted, whichareas are relevant to Russian business with regard to CSR, whatkind of activities they conduct, to what extent there is cooperationwith governmental and non-governmental stakeholders, whichinternationally recognized CSR standards are being applied, andhow much companies spend on CSR.

We begin by examining the political and socio-economic envi-ronment for CSR in Russia. For this examinationwe applyWhitley'smodel of the “national business system” as an institutional theoryapproach. In the following section, the methodology and the find-ings are presented and discussed. In the conclusion, we address theresearch questions to be stated below and link the political andsocio-economic environment to our findings on the current CSRpractice in Russia. We also discuss implications of our findingsfor government and business, and make recommendations forfurther research.

2. The political and socio-economic environment for CSR inRussia

For our analysis of the political and socio-economic environ-ment, we use the “national business systems approach” developedby Whitley (1992, 1997; 1999). Its core argument is that the busi-ness system of a country is determined by the historical develop-ment of its institutions. The term “institution” is understoodbroadly in this context and does not only refer to the organizationof government and bureaucracy, but also to prevailing codified andnon-codified norms of behavior as well as values. This approachwas also applied in other studies on national CSR characteristics(e.g., Habisch et al., 2011). Whitley has identified four elements thatdetermine the national business system of a country: the politicalsystem, the cultural system, the financial system, and the educationand labor system. These determinants and how they shape Russia'sbusiness system as the institutional environment for CSR shallnow be examined.

The political system of Russia is still strongly characterized by itsSoviet legacy and the following transition phase. For almost 70years, the Communist Party controlled all aspects of social, eco-nomic, and political life in the Soviet Union, Russia's predecessorstate, until its collapse in 1991. The radical introduction of a freemarket economy, the so-called “shock therapy”, mostly failed, andRussia went into an unexpectedly strong economic recession. Achaotic form of capitalism developed (Lane, 2000), and even untiltoday markets in Russia must be considered immature. Especiallyproblematic in this context was the politically steered privatizationprocess, which was dominated by corruption and fraud. Kuznetsovet al. (2009, p. 39) describe it as a “particularly messy and murkyaffair that traumatised many Russians psychologically and hurtthem financially, and was widely regarded as deeply unfair.”Polishchuk (2009, p. 91) points out that 77% of the respondents in asurvey among Russian citizens “felt that the majority of corporateowners in Russia did not rightfully own their assets.”

Though with his ascendancy to the presidency in 2000, Putinmanaged to restore the state's capacity significantly (Puffer andMcCarthy, 2007), deep mistrust in the political system and in thelarge corporations that profited from privatization have remainedand are still prevalent among large parts of the population. Like-wise, the deficiencies of the political and economic system are anempirical reality until today. There is a substantial informationasymmetry between big business and government on the one sideand citizens on the other (Polishchuk, 2009). Governmental regu-lation, especially its development, and the respective businessbehavior aremostly intransparent. Corruption is an integral elementin that opaque policy process. In the “Corruption Perceptions Index”published by Transparency International (2011), Russia only ranked143rd out of 182 nations. Concerning the protection of intellectualproperty, the country does not fare substantially better and placed93rd in a study of 129 nations (Jackson, 2011).

Despite the significant involvement of the government in eco-nomic affairs, there have been hardly any attempts to enforce orstrengthen CSR, aside from promoting charitable donations through

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tax incentives. This has led to extensive corporate giving, whichsignificantly exceeds the level found in western countries(Polishchuk, 2009).

Russia's cultural system is closely interlinked with its politicalenvironment. Despite the strong involvement of the government ineconomic affairs, social support systems are weak. Russia's publicsocial expenditures only make up 12% of GDP, whereas the OECDaverage is 19.3%. Even in the United States, as a country that hastraditionally placed much emphasis on individual responsibility,the number amounts to 16.3% (OECD, 2011). The limited scope ofsocial services provided by the government also is a result of thecountry's history. During communist timese especially in so-called‘monotowns’, which were built around a company to accommodateworkers e companies actively took part in the provision ofhealthcare, education, and housing. Thus, citizens have come toregard companies as social caretakers. Attempts by companies toreduce the respective services during the 1990s, as managersconsidered them too costly, failed. So most companies still provideat least some form of social service. In a large nationwide study of404 firms of all sizes, Haaparanta et al. (2003, p. 2) found that “56%of the firms have their own housing or support local housing, and73% of the firms have recreation facilities or support employee'srecreation activities.” Moreover, the focus on the local communityis still prevalent in donation patterns. Alexeeva (2008) estimatesthat 40%e80% of all corporate donations are still tightly linked tothe communities and cities where the respective corporationsoperate. These observations are interesting with regard to CSR.While during the communist regime the government forced com-panies to provide the social services mentioned, they latercontinued this tradition voluntarily because of stakeholder pres-sure. Thus, the driving force for CSR has changed, but its local focushas been maintained.

Another legacy of the communist past is the absence of civilsociety. As Putnam (2000, p. 762) has observed, communismcreated a civic culture characterized by a “without-me attitude”.Thus, due to the overwhelming role of the state, significant civicinitiatives did not develop. Later, after the end of the ColdWar, mostcitizens were concerned with securing their individual economicsurvival, and in the atmosphere of mistrust and unregulatedcompetition described above, solidarity and joint civil activityfound no fertile soil (Mishler and Rose, 1997; Rose, 2000). The or-ganization of NGOs has remained weak, and due to a chronic lack ofresources, they have not managed to effectively reach a widerpublic (Crotty, 2009; Crotty and Rodgers, 2012). By cutting of NGOsfrom foreign contributions, Putin has additionally weakened theiractivities. It comes to no surprise that Russian managers do notview pressure from NGOs as a motive for developing CSR. In asurvey by the The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) (2008), only 7%of the respondents stated that NGO pressure led them to considerCSR development. Thus, civil society cannot be regarded as adriving force for CSR in Russia. Instead, its weakness has created astate of affairs that is characterized by civil society's “inability to actas a real partner with business on issues of social responsibility”(Polishchuk, 2009, p. 84).

Equally weak is the role of mass media, which e despite a path-ological suspicion of unethical profit-making on the business side e

have mostly ignored CSR issues. Again, the strong influence of thegovernment manifested by censorship, gives mass media little roomto maneuver. In the survey by the EIU (2008), none of the Russianmanagers surveyed felt pressured by mass media to deal with CSR.

The Russian financial system is characterized by many short-comings. The country's banks lack access to capital, especiallyforeign capital, and are strongly dependent on the relation withindividual oligarchs and the government. Their inability to build upsufficient capital reserves has rendered them uncompetitive on

international markets and even on their home market they find itdifficult to compete with foreign banks. Thus, the Russian financialsystem is hampered by a very low capitalization of the bankingsystem. Whereas in most developed countries, the ratio betweenGDP and the availability of capital is close to 100%, in Russia itstands at only 25% (Bruno, 2012). The poor capitalization of thebanks has been a burden for economic growth, as they cannot meetthe credit needs of Russian companies.

Moreover, competition in the banking system is weak. Russiahas more than 900 banks. While most of them are very small,there is an increasing concentration of banking activity among thelargest banks, reducing competition. Another cause of insufficientcompetition is the strong position of state-controlled banks, whosemarket share is increasing, and thus, the influence of governmentwith it (Aleksashenko, 2011).

The labor and education system is still heavily influenced byRussia's communist past. Concerning education, the transitionaway from the Soviet forged system has been slow. Nevertheless, apositive legacy is the high rate of tertiary education. According to aWorld Bank (2011) statistic, 54% of the entire labor force havecompleted tertiary education, which is one of the highest ratesworldwide. This extend of higher education, however, does nottranslate into a strong civil society or civic engagement, as onemight expect. The observation for western democracies that astrong correlation between educational achievement and civicinvolvement exists (Gaskin and Smith, 1997; Independent Sector,2001; Toppe et al., 2002) does not hold true for Russia. Thus, ed-ucation has not been a driver for CSR or related notions.

With regard to the labor system, there is still a strong rela-tionship between employee and company, and lifelong employ-ment at one firm is no exception. Thus, as in communist times,loyalty is much valued, often more than performance. Furthermore,as pointed out above, the employer often acts as a provider of socialservices, which increases the dependency of the employees.However, this role that companies were gradually pushed into hasalso created a strong notion of a social responsibility towards theworkforce and is the foundation for the respective expectations byemployees. Unions only play a minor role in promoting CSR, alsobecause they are some of the least trusted organizations (Crowley,2002; Clarke and Pringle, 2009).

Overall, it can be concluded that the political, cultural, educa-tional, and labor systems of Russia do not provide fertile ground forCSR of a broader nature. Only the traditionally strong role of com-panies to provide social services for employees and the immediatecommunity as well as governmental incentives for donations canbe identified as national drivers for CSR.

However, as pointed out above, the country's national businesssystem has recently been influenced by western business practices,which especially affect large corporations that operate on an in-ternational level. Already in 2003, at the annual meeting of theRussian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, President Putincalled for more effort with regard to CSR in order to increase theattractiveness and international competitiveness of Russian busi-ness (Kuznetsov et al., 2009). Large corporations reacted to this call,which was frequently repeated by foreign investors, by introducingCSR policies and programs (Baskin, 2007).

The various domestic and international influences on CSR justdescribed lead to the two research questions we seek to answer. Thefirst question addresses the actual practice of CSR in Russia: in whatfields of CSR are they active, what stakeholders do they consider,how do they enact CSR and report about it, and what is the financialscope of their activities? The second question is: Are the conceptand practice of CSR in Russia mostly determined by the country'spolitical and socio-economic environment or are they predomi-nantly shaped by international developments and influences?

Table 1Average size, industry distribution, and form of ownership (n ¼ 50).

Number absolute Number in %

Turnover in $ bn.<5 23 465e20 20 40>20 7 14IndustryPrimary Industries 26 52Manufacturing 4 8Financial Services 5 10Other Services 11 22Retail 4 8Form of Ownershipprivate 37 74fully or partly government owned 13 26

M.S. Fifka, M. Pobizhan / Journal of Cleaner Production 82 (2014) 192e201 195

3. Research methodology

In order to examine the state of CSR in Russia, we examined theCSR activities of the country's 50 largest companies according toturnover. Large firms were selected for three reasons. First of all,they are more likely than small and medium-sized enterprises(SME) to engage in CSR activities, since they have greater financialand human resources to do so. Second, they usually act as pro-ponents of CSR and the respective developments and, thus, take apioneering role. These two arguments are especially important inthe Russian context, where large corporations e also for reasons ofinternational competition ewere quicker to respond to the call forCSR and “announced various steps in the direction of greatertransparency, community support, environmental reporting, etc.”(Kuznetsov et al., 2009, p. 37). Third, they are more inclined thanSME to provide information on their CSR, as numerous studies haveshown (e.g., Cowen et al., 1987; Adams et al., 1995; Patten, 2002;Cormier et al., 2004; Morhardt, 2010; for an overview of the de-terminants of reporting see Fifka, 2013).

3.1. Data collection

Such provision of information was essential for our study sincewe applied content analysis to obtain the relevant data. Thismethod can be defined as ‘the study of recorded human commu-nications, such as books, websites, paintings and laws’ (Babbie,2010: 333) and has been used widely to win information on busi-ness practices of CSR (e.g.: Patten, 2002; Cormier et al., 2004;Holder-Webb et al., 2009; Habisch et al., 2011; Fifka and Drabble,2012). Content analysis in the case of CSR builds on the assumptionthat companies out of self-interest have a desire to report widelyon their activities in order to communicate with their stake-holders, although a certain risk that a company provides alteredinformation remains (Husted and Allen, 2006; Logsdon andWood, 2005).

We analyzed information made publicly available by the com-panies, either electronically or in print. The respective mediacomprised the most recent annual reports and non-financial re-ports (often being issued under the titles “Corporate Social Re-sponsibility Report” or “Sustainability Report”) published untilJanuary 2012. The homepages provided by the companies in thesample were analyzed from July to December 2011. Concerning thecompilation of data, the respective print and online publicationswere scanned entirely for the relevant information by the twoauthors. The data analysis was conducted by using a checklist withwhich the relevant information was categorized into a multi-criterion grid.

The inclusion of two authors is essential here, because, ac-cording to Saunders et al. (2012), reliability is achieved if re-searchers draw the same conclusions from the raw data. In thisregard, there was no risk of interpretational discretion in our study.The elements of CSR we analyzed could be clearly and objectivelyidentified, as we checked if a certain pattern or feature was existentor not, such as the existence of a CSR report, the application of acertain standard, and the consideration of a certain stakeholder. Itmust be pointed out here that this dichotomous approach also is alimitation to our study, because for most elements of CSR we onlyexamined if a certain CSR element could be observed, e.g., theproduction of a CSR report, but we did not examine its quality or itsextent. However, by also examining the financial scope of CSR, weaddress this limitation. Overall, the elements analyzed were theareas and types of CSR activities, stakeholders considered, appli-cation of standards, and CSR expenditures. They are presented inthe tables on the respective issues below, which is why we do notpresent them in a separate table here.

3.2. Sample

To identify the 50 largest companies in Russia, we firstly reliedon the list of the world's 2000 largest corporations provided byForbes (2010), like similar studies had done before (Li et al., 2010;Alon et al., 2010). As this list only contained 28 Russian corpora-tions, we identified the remaining 22 by referring to the ExpertRating Agency (2010), a Russian organization that provides com-pany data.

In order to be able to examine if company characteristics have animpact on CSR, as previous studies have suggested (for an overviewsee Fifka, 2013; Hahn and Kühnen, 2013), we differentiated oursample according to the following criteria: size, industry, and formof ownership (private or governmental).

As Table 1 shows, the majority of the largest Russian companiesare rather small with an annual turnover of less than US$ 5 billion.In the U.S., for comparison, none of the country's 30 largest com-panies has an annual turnover of less than US$45 billion. In Ger-many, the number stands at US$25 billion. Only seven Russiancompanies have an annual turnover of more than US$20 billion,two of which can be considered very large: Gazprom (turnover:US$ 115 billion) and Lukoil (US$ 86 billion).

Concerning industry, the majority of companies (52%) areinvolved in the extraction and refining of oil, gas, coal, andminerals.Many of the mining companies also are active in refining the ma-terials, especially in metallurgy. Thus, they could be classified aseither extracting or manufacturing companies. Since a precise dif-ferentiation cannot be made, we considered these companies asone group, which we will refer to as the primary sector. This sectoris built on the country's extensive mineral resources and generateslarge revenues. Other sectors in turn are rather weak. Companiesfrom other areas of manufacturing and from retailing, account foronly 8% of the total sample each. Financial service providers alsoonly constitute a small number of the largest companies (10%),especially when compared to most western economies, where theplay a much larger role. In the U.S., for comparison, one third of the30 largest companies are financial service providers. Finally, otherservice companies account for 22% of our sample and mostly pro-vide telecommunications and transport services.

With regard to ownership, another legacy of the communistpast becomes visible. 26% of the companies investigated are stillfully or partly owned by the state. 74% in turn are privately owned.

4. Findings and discussion

4.1. CSR reporting

As it provided the basis for our research, the first element of CSRwe examined was reporting online and in print. 86% of the

Table 2CSR Reporting Media and Language (all numbers as percentages).

Existence of a CSRsection on homepage

CSR section provided ina Publi-cationof a CSR report

CSR report provided inb GRIb

Only in Russian Only in English Both Only in Russian Only in English Both

Total 86 8 2 90 36 28 7 67 83Turnover in $ bn.<5 74 12 6 82 26 50 0 50 835e20 95 5 0 95 35 29 0 71 86>20 100 14 0 86 71 0 20 80 80IndustryPrimary 100 4 0 96 46 17 8 75 83Manufacturing 75 0 0 100 0 0 0 0 0Financial Ser. 100 20 20 60 20 100 0 10 100Other Services 73 25 0 75 45 40 0 60 80Retail 25 0 0 100 0 0 0 0 0Ownershipprivate 89 3 3 94 32 17 8 75 83government 77 30 0 70 46 50 0 50 83

a This percentage is calculated in reference to the companies that provide a CSR section on their homepage (example: 8 percent of the companies that have a CSR section ontheir homepage provide it only in Russian).

b This percentage is calculated in reference to the companies that issue a CSR report.

M.S. Fifka, M. Pobizhan / Journal of Cleaner Production 82 (2014) 192e201196

companies in our sample have a CSR section on their homepage,meaning a button or a link explicitly referring to CSR or a similarterm (Table 2). Of the companies providing such a section, the largemajority (90%) have the CSR pages available in English and inRussian, 2% provide them in English only. Only a small share pro-vides the CSR homepage exclusively in Russian (8%). Thus, Russiancompanies must be seen as aware of having international stake-holders, otherwise there would be no need for them to provideinformation in English so extensively.

The likeliness of providing a CSR section increases with size e

a pattern that has also been found by many other studies on CSRreporting (for an overview on the impact of company character-istics see Fifka, 2013; Hahn and Kühnen, 2013). However, size hasno impact on the language in which the webpages are provided.Industry as company characteristic in turn plays a role with re-gard to the existence of a CSR section on the homepage. All of thecompanies from the primary sector and all financial companiesprovide CSR information on theweb. In case of the primary sector,the business of the respective companies e whether it is mining,refining or heavy industry manufacturing e is prone to leave aheavy burden on the environment, which is why they seek toobtain legitimacy for their operations through CSR communica-tion with stakeholders (Kuznetsov et al., 2009). Likewise, aspointed out above, there is substantial mistrust in the financialindustry, which is largely controlled by oligarchs and, thus,clearly faces a legitimacy problem as well (Polishchuk, 2009).Concerning the form of ownership, privately-owned companiesare more inclined to have a CSR section on their homepage thancompanies with governmental ownership. Moreover, the lattermore frequently only provide CSR information in Russian, whichcan be explained by the fact that the companies owned by theRussian government primarily need to justify their operations tothe country's citizens.

This language pattern also holds true for stand-alone CSR re-ports. These are separate documents available in print in which acompany discloses information on its CSR policies and activities.Overall, while internet reporting is quite extensive, the number ofcompanies issuing a report is much smaller (36%). This is explainedby the fact that publishing a report, especially one of meaningfulscope and quality, is connected to higher costs, since data needs tobe collected, and then the report needs to be designed, printed anddistributed. Thus, it can be observed that many Russian companiesrefrain from making high expenditures for reporting, reducing it tothe publication of information online.

Nevertheless, the companies that do issue a stand-alone reportare willing to undertake substantial efforts, reflected by the factthat 83% of them apply the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in itsthird version (G3), being the prevalent reporting standard at thetime of our research (the new version, G4, was only released in May2013). This underlines the trend described above that business inRussia is influenced internationally with regard to CSR. Regardingcompany size and ownership, there are no remarkable differencesin the application of the GRI, but industry shows to be an importantimpact factor again. Once more, companies from the primary andfinancial sectors are using the GRI most often, reflecting the prop-osition made above that they are attempting to legitimize theiroperations against the background of social expectations.

4.2. Stakeholders considered

In order to investigate how strong CSR is influenced by thecountries' institutions, we also examined the consideration ofstakeholders by business. To do this, we analyzedwhich groupswereexplicitly recognized as stakeholders by the sample companies.

As we can see from Table 3, employees are the most consideredstakeholder group across the full sample. This reflects the ideal of astrong, often lifelong relationship between employee and firm thathas been forged during Soviet times and still is a characteristic ofthe Russian business system, as described above. The employer isperceived as a “caretaker” for the employees, especially because ofthe absence of a noteworthy public social security system.

The client/customer in turn is a rather weak stakeholder in theeyes of Russian business, as has also been found by Alon et al.(2010). Only 38% of all companies refer to clients as stakeholders,though there is a stronger consideration of customers by serviceproviders and the retail industry. Thus, business-to-customercompanies seem to be more aware of customer interests thanbusiness-to-business oriented companies from manufacturing andextractive industries. A potential explanation for the generally weakconsideration of clients may again be the legacy of Russia's eco-nomic history that was characterized by supply-side-economics, inwhich people had to buy what was offered and buyers' demandsvery fully insignificant.

Unsurprisingly, due to its strong role in economic affairs(Polishchuk, 2009; Kuznetsov et al., 2009) the government is aprominent stakeholder, which was mentioned as such by 76% of allprivately-owned companies (we did not consider government-owned companies in this regard since the government is a

Table 3Stakeholders considered.

Em-ployees Customers/Clients Govern-menta NGOs Local com-munity Int. business organ. UN global compact member

Total 82 36 76 74 72 34 8Turnover in $ bn.<5 78 30 59 57 57 22 05e20 85 40 88 85 80 35 5>20 100 43 100 100 100 71 43IndustryPrimary 92 23 87 88 85 38 8Manufacturing 75 0 50 25 25 0 0Financial Ser. 100 100 100 100 100 20 0Other Services 73 46 75 73 64 55 18Retail 25 50 25 0 25 0 0Ownershipprivate 70 38 76 73 73 30 5government 62 31 n/a 70 70 46 15

a Concerning the government as stakeholder, we reduced the sample to privately-owned companies, since in government-owned companies the government is astakeholder per se.

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stakeholder in a government-owned company per se). What can beclearly observed is that the consideration of government as astakeholder increases with company size. Large companies canhardly operate without good government relations, and often thereare strong interpersonal relationships between politicians andowners. This holds especially true in the extractive industries, butalso in the finance sector, in which many companies are dominatedby so-called oligarchs, as described above. They in turn are heavilydependent on the Russian government for not enacting newlegislation that would make the Russian banking market morecompetitive and endanger their position.

There is also a remarkable consideration of non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs) as stakeholders. 74% of all companiesexplicitlymention at least one NGO or type of NGO as a stakeholder.However, the termNGO has to be understood in a broad sense here,not only referring to internationally active NGOs that pursue socialor political goals, such as Greenpeace or Amnesty International. Theinvestigation of stakeholder relations with international NGOswould hardly be sensible, since NGOs that are operating in Russiaand are accepting donations from abroad were classified as ‘foreignagents’ by law in 2012 and many of them have eventually been‘dried out’. Already in 2006, a first law to restrict the activities ofNGOs had been passed and many of them were forced into coop-eration with the government in order to continue operating(Fr€ohlich, 2012). As Ljubownikow and Crotty (2013) observe, “NGOshave acquiesced to the demands of this legislation, which un-dermines their independence and is currently stalling the furtherdevelopment of Russia's civil society.” Thus, the NGOs that werementioned as stakeholders by the sample companies were pre-dominantly Russian and active in politically accepted areas suchas veteran or orphan support, which we will discuss to moreextent below.

The local community is an important stakeholder to Russiancompanies as well, especially the largest ones. All of themmentionedthe local community as a stakeholder. This once more is the resultof the country's economic history. During communist times, largecompanies as extended arm of the government provided all kindsof social services to the local community where the labor forcewas drawn from. This was specifically true in the so-called‘monotowns’ described above, which were artificial towns con-structed around the site of large companies to accommodateworkers and to provide the necessary civil infrastructure. Thefacilities were then operated by the company. These monotownswere common in the primary industry, for which the local com-munity is an especially important stakeholder, mentioned by 87%of the respective companies.

International business organizations, such as industry associa-tions or business initiatives, are less frequently perceived as astakeholder. Only 34% of all companies refer to them explicitly,while their importance is once again increasing with size. It can beassumed e though this would have to be proven empirically byfurther studies e that large companies are more active interna-tionally, thus paying more attention to such organizations. Never-theless, the fact that one third of the sample companies considerthese organizations as stakeholders shows that the country is notimmune to foreign influence (Kuznetsov et al., 2009). What isremarkable is that government-owned companies are more activewith regard to international organizations than privately-ownedcompanies. We would have expected, as pointed out above, astronger focus of government-owned companies on domesticstakeholders. A possible explanation for this observation would bethat government-owned companies view such organizations as avehicle for enacting international influence.

Finally, we examined membership in the UN Global Compact asa proxy for a signed commitment to the consideration of stake-holder interests in the areas of human rights, working conditions,environmental protection, and corruption. As Table 3 shows, GlobalCompact membership is very rare among the sample companies,except for the largest ones. One might expect that the GlobalCompact enjoys some popularity, since it was used as the basis fordrawing up the Social Charter for Russian Business, which wasdeveloped by the Russian Association of Industrialists and Com-panies and passed in 2008. However, this national charter has alsobeen received only poorly, as merely 230 companies signed on to ituntil the end of 2011 (Kostin, 2011). Therefore, internationallyaccepted standards such as the Global Compact and even ones ofnational character are of only marginal importance to Russiancompanies, except for the larger ones with significant internationaloperations. The low adherence to frameworks and standards e alsoto be observed in the next section - demonstrates the aim ofRussian companies to avoid binding commitments in the area ofCSR and to merely focus on not violating the “societal consensus”(Matten andMoon, 2008, p. 410) as the primary motivation for CSR.

4.3. Areas of CSR

There aremany areas inwhich CSR can be conducted. As pointedout above, we defined CSR as the integration of social and envi-ronmental concerns in the business operations. Thus, CSR isfocusing on a company's operations. However, external socialconcerns outside of a company's value chain can also be addressedthrough CSR (Sharp and Zaidman, 2010). Carroll (1991, 1999)

Table 5Forms of Corporate Citizenship Applied (all numbers as percentages).

Donations Foundations Socialsponsoring

Corporatevolunteering

Total 80 30 10 28Turnover in $ bn.<5 65 26 4 95e20 90 40 15 40>20 100 14 14 57IndustryPrimary 96 39 8 38Manufacturing 25 0 0 0Financial Ser. 100 60 20 40Other Services 73 18 9 18Retail 25 0 25 0Ownershipprivate 81 35 11 30government 77 15 8 23

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referred to this element of CSR as “philanthropy” and later as“corporate citizenship” in his pyramid of CSR. Therefore, we did notonly consider CSR activities directly related to the value chain suchas the improvement of working conditions or environmental per-formance, but also community investment to address externalproblems. Though they are external to the company, issues such aseducation, healthcare, or infrastructure often have an impact on thebusiness since they shape the business environment. Throughcommunity investment in these areas, a company can improve itsbusiness environment, which is why we can speak of strategiccorporate citizenship (Porter and Kramer, 2002; Matten and Moon,2005).

As Table 4 shows, 68% of all companies engage in activities toimprove environmental protection. Here we considered activitiesrelated to the core business, e.g., the reduction of waste or emis-sions, and the increase of eco-efficiency. Environmental protectionin Russia has a difficult history, since it was completely disregardedduring communist times. Environmental devastation was evenseen as a sign of industrial progress. With regard to agriculture,collective ownership of farms, the “Kol-khozy”, did not lead toenvironmental awareness, but was aiming at maximum exploita-tion to meet production quotas established in the five-year plans.Today, Russia is heavily dependent on natural resources, e.g., oil andgas, aluminum, iron ore, and timber, placing a heavy burden on theenvironment. Nevertheless, environmental awareness has beengrowing, and environmental protection increasingly is an issue(Henry and Douhovnikoff, 2008). As one could expect, environ-mental protection measures are primarily taken in the primaryindustry sector as an environmentally sensitive industry, whereasin finance and in retail environmental issues do not featureprominently. Moreover, larger companies are more likely to takesuch measures, while ownership is not of substantial influence.Concerning the implementation of international standards, thereluctance of Russian companies just pointed out can again beobserved. Only 34% of all companies have implemented the ISO14000/14001 as the leading standard for the implementation of anenvironmental management system. Once again, this standard isapplied far more often in the primary industry (54%) in comparisonto the other industries (Table 2).

This pattern is even stronger with regard to standards foroccupational health and safety. All companies from our samplethat are certified according to the OSHAS 18001 (OccupationalHealth- and Safety Assessment Series), which can be consideredthe most recognized health and safety management standardon a global scale, come from the primary industry. Though the

Table 4Areas of CSR (all numbers as percentages).

Environ-menta Work Condi.b Community investment in

Cul-ture Edu-cation

Total 68 (34) 82 (12) 60 70Turnover in $ bn.<5 61 (35) 78 (17) 52 615e20 70 (35) 85 (5) 60 85>20 86 (29) 100 (14) 100 100IndustryPrimary 96 (54) 92 (23) 77 85Manufacturing 25 (25) 75 (0) 25 50Financial Ser. 0 (0) 100 (0) 100 100Other Services 73 (18) 73 (0) 36 64Retail 0 (0) 25 (0) 0 25Ownershipprivate 70 (35) 81 (14) 62 78government 62 (31) 85 (8) 62 69

a Number in brackets indicates ISO 14000/14001 certification.b Number in brackets indicates OHSAS 18000/18001 certification.

implementation of OSHAS is low across the full sample, 82% of allcompanies mentioned at least one activity to improve workingconditions. With the exception of retail, working conditions areconsidered to be an important issue across all industries. Theform of ownership also is not of considerable influence in thisregard. Anew, the notion of a strong bond between worker andemployer historically founded in Russia's business system isvisible here.

Community investment as corporate citizenship also is firmlyestablished among Russian companies. Over nine out of ten com-panies are engaged in at least one of the five areas of corporatecitizenship we identified: culture, education, healthcare, youth andsports, infrastructure. Education as well as youth and sports are theareas which experience most of the engagement. 70% and 76%,respectively, of all sample companies make investments in thesetwo areas. The provision of educational and recreational facilities,as pointed out above, has been a traditional realm of companiesduring socialist times. Though the political and economic systemhas changed, the historically grounded expectation that companiesshould contribute to these areas still exists, as Crotty and Rodgers(2012) have also observed (Table 5).

It is remarkable that companies from the primary and financialsectors are the most active in the different areas of corporate citi-zenship. Since they are the ones suffering strongly from a credibilitycrisis (Kuznetsov et al. 2009), community investment to them is anattempt to address legitimacy issues. The form of ownership doesnot produce any remarkable differences, while company size once

the field of Minority support

Health-care Youth a. Sports Infra-structure

66 76 50 18

61 61 39 1370 90 50 1586 100 86 43

77 85 65 3550 50 25 080 100 60 073 73 36 00 25 0 0

70 72 51 2262 62 54 8

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again is a relevant company characteristic, as larger companies aremore likely to make community investments.

Aside from education, and youth and sports, at least six out often companies also contribute to the areas of culture and health-care, while infrastructure e the maintenance and construction ofpublic facilities e is of somewhat lesser importance. With regard toculture, we found significant investment in the revival of Russianculture before the time of the Soviet empire. During the Sovietregime, culture was mainly used as a form of propaganda and, thus,traditional arts and music were replaced by indoctrinated Sovietculture. Therefore, it is no surprise that most investment in the areaof culture is targeted at Russian institutions founded before theOctober Revolution of 1917, such as the Bolshoi Theatre, the Tre-tyakov State Gallery, and the State Russian Museum.

Concerning healthcare, we frequently found activities that wereaiming at improving the situation of two groups specific to Russia:veterans and orphans. Due to the large size of the military and thecountry's engagement in many wars throughout history, there is asignificant financial burden for Russia today concerning the supportof veterans. Thus, the government has tried to stimulate charitabledonations to veteran organizations through the creation of specialtax incentives for this purpose (Danilova, 2007). A related problemis that of orphans. In Russia, there are approximately 1500 or-phanages, where 260,000 children live, though unofficial numbersare much higher (Caringheart Russia, 2011). Governmental funds tosupport these institutions are lacking, which is why some of thecompanies in our sample, e.g. Sberbank, exclusively target all oftheir community investment at supporting orphanages.

Another demographic group specific to Russia are ethnic mi-norities, many of which are indigenous people that live in the verynorthern and southern parts of the country. Today, about 18.1% ofthe Russian population consist of ethnic minorities (Minorityrights,2011). Minority groups often enjoy extensive land rights in theremote areas where they live. Since these are the areas which arerich in natural resources, companies from the primary sector doingbusiness there are expected e partly by law e to ensure the pres-ervation of the customs, traditional ways of life, and natural envi-ronment of the minorities. Thus, it is no surprise that support ofminority groups as a specific area of CSR is conducted exclusively bycompanies from the primary sector.

4.4. Forms of corporate citizenship

Regarding the forms or instruments of corporate citizenship, wedistinguished between donations, operating a foundation, corpo-rate volunteering (allowing employees to volunteer time for char-itable purposes during working hours), and social sponsoring,which is the sponsoring of non-commercial events or institutionsthrough monetary or in-kind support (for a detailed discussion ofthese forms see Kotler and Lee, 2005).

As indicated above, making monetary donations has beenincentivized by the national government through tax deductions.Moreover, donations are an easy to apply form of corporate citi-zenship, since they can bemade in any amount and do not require alarger administrative effort. Unsurprisingly, out of the four forms ofcorporate citizenship we examined, donations are the instrumentapplied most frequently by far. Though making donations becomesmore likely with growing firm size, even almost two-thirds of thesmallest companies in our sample make donations. There aresubstantial differences between industries e companies from theprimary and financial sectors are once again leading the pack e

whereas the form of ownership does not produce any remarkabledifferences. This is different in the case of foundations as another‘classical’ form of corporate citizenship. More than twice as manyprivately-owned as government-owned companies operate a

foundation. The only potential explanation for this observation isthat government-owned companies might be more inclined to usethe large scale financial means that are necessary to operate afoundation for other forms of governmental support, which allow amore direct control over the funds used.

Corporate volunteering as a newer form of corporate citizenshipis only used by 28% of the companies. This reflects the weakness ofRussian civil society described above, where personal civicengagement is rather absent. It is difficult to build up corporatevolunteering if the underlying willingness of people to volunteer ismissing. Moreover, the operation of corporate volunteering pro-grams requires a certain manpower and administrative effort(Kotler and Lee, 2005), which explains why corporate volunteeringis increasing with company size. Finally, social sponsoring is onlyused by 10% of the sample companies. This instrument is not to beconfounded with the traditional sponsoring of professional orquasi-professional sports teams, which has already been commonfor large companies during Soviet times and provided the foun-dations for modern commercial sponsoring in Russia. Social spon-soring, on the contrary, is still in its infancy. As it has a strongmarketing character and primarily aims at improving image (Kotlerand Lee, 2005), it is no surprise that it is mostly used in the retailindustry, where the business-to-customer relationship is substan-tially dependent on brand image.

4.5. Financial scope of CSR

In general, Russian companies are rather reluctant to disclosethe financial dimension of their CSR efforts, which is why we do notprovide a specific table for the information gathered here. Overall,only 20% of all companies publish respective information. There aresignificant differences with regard to the various industry sectorsthat disclose this kind of financial data, especially with regard toenvironmental expenditures. 90% of the companies which provideinformation on the financial scope of environmental protectionoperate in the primary sector, mostly in the exploitation of oil andgas. However, the numbers given are usually not differentiated ac-cording to how the money has been used. In most cases, the com-panies in question simply publish an overall number for what isusually referred to as “environmental program” or “ecology pro-gram”, and do not explain how much they spent on specific mea-sures or projects. This overall amount ranges from $3.4 million inthe case of the refining company Novatek up to $723 million spentby Lukoil, the country's largest petroleum company. On average, thetotal expenditures per company that disclosed information onenvironmental protection measures amounted to $206.5 million.

The observations with regard to social expenditures are notmuch different. 22% of all companies provide information on theirexpenditures made to address social issues. Often a total for what isreferred to as “charity expenditures” or “social programs” is pro-vided. Again, it is mostly companies involved in the extraction orrefining of natural resources that do so: 90% of all companiesdisclosing such information operate in the primary sector. How-ever, the amounts spent on the social dimension of CSR are smallerthan the ones spent on environmental protection. Lukoil made theleast expenditures with $2 million, presumably because of its largeenvironmental expenditures, while the conglomerate TAIF, which isstrong in the oil and petrochemical industry, spent $325.1 millionon internal and external social issues. Average expenditures percompany were $58 million.

The significant expenditures for environmental protection thatsome companies make show that there is an increasing awarenessfor environmental issues, but again they must be judged as ratherdefensive (Crotty and Rodgers, 2012), since they are primarily madeto maintain operational legitimacy.

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5. Conclusion and recommendations for further research

Our study has shown that CSR in Russia is shaped by thecountry's institutions. The national political and socio-economicenvironment strongly determines how companies practice CSR.Stemming from the country's socialist history, most attention is stillbeing paid to the employees and the immediate community, whichis supported through charitable activities. Thus, Russian businessstill assumes a social role that has already been assigned to it duringcommunist times to a considerable degree. This pattern also be-comes evident when considering the nature of charitable engage-ment, which is targeted at country-specific issues, such as thesupport for veterans, orphans, and ethnic minorities.

Nevertheless, an international element is also observable in theCSR of Russian companies. Since roughly one third of the samplecompanies participate in international business associations andconduct CSR reporting in English, we can conclude that they seek toengage with and provide information for foreign stakeholders.Moreover, the high level of GRI application demonstrates aware-ness of internationally recognized standards e at least among thefew that issue a report. The willingness to adopt such standardscannot be observed on a broad scale, which also holds true for otherframeworks such as ISO and OSHAS norms, and the UN GlobalCompact. The ones that follow international standards are pri-marily large corporations from the extractive industry. It can beconcluded that they do so because they are subject to internationalscrutiny and try to legitimize their operations.

Overall, preserving legitimacy seems to be an important motivefor Russian companies in the pursuit of what can be described as acountry-specific CSR characterized by traditional stakeholders andtraditional areas of engagement. Especially in times when confi-dence in business is declining, CSR could be beneficial for main-taining legitimacy and regaining trust. However, the road to a moreprofound CSR will be a long and winding one, especially becausepressure from governmental and non-governmental institutions islacking. Civil society is only weakly organized and its developmenthas been undermined through political control. This way the gov-ernment indirectly reduces the pressure on business to act moresocially responsible. Concerning a direct influence, the Putinadministration has made some scattered calls for more CSR, butthere have been no political initiatives to promote CSR or tostrengthen the legal or regulatory framework for it, except forgranting generous tax deductions for donations. Moreover, as longas the political actors themselves maintain undemocratic pro-cesses, control justice, and are involved in corruption, govern-mental institutions are not in a credible position to promote CSR.From the business perspective, however, grievances on the politicallevel would provide fertile ground for Russian companies to dis-tance themselves from these malpractices by demonstrating moresocial responsibility, and thus regain trust from stakeholders.

Managerial implications for foreign companies are twofold.First, they have to realize that CSR in Russia shows country-specific patterns that should not be neglected. Therefore, foreigncompanies need to be aware that the Russian understanding ofCSR primarily consists of taking care of employees and commu-nity. These responsibilities will have to be met first in order tomaintain the license to operate and to make additional policiesand initiatives credible. The coordination with Russian authoritieson CSR activities is also recommendable and allows influentialmultinationals to promote CSR on a political level. Second, thenegligence of certain areas of CSR by Russian companies, such asaddressing customer issues, might provide the potential for dif-ferentiation. This way extending CSR beyond traditional patternscould create a significant competitive advantage over domesticcompanies.

Due to the focus of existing studies on large corporations, alimitation also inherent to our study, it would be viable to examinethe state of CSR in Russian SME. Another viable extent of our studywould be to examine the relationship between the degree ofinternationalization and CSR elements, as our study indicates thatinternational operations seem to foster the CSR initiatives ofRussian companies. Moreover, it would be interesting to investigatewhich barriers they see to a more profound and encompassingimplementation of CSR. Such a study could not rely on contentanalysis, which we applied, but would require the use of ques-tionnaires or interviews with managers. Finally, the perspectiveand perception of stakeholders, such as consumers, employees, andthe media, on CSR needs to be examined in order to profoundlyjudge their potential role in the promotion of CSR.

Our study has filled a part of the existing research gap on CSR inRussia by demonstrating that it is in a transitional stage, just as thecountry itself, and strongly determined by political and socio-economic factors. For future research, it would be worthwhile toexamine if this transition process occurs similarly in otheremerging markets and if the influence of the respective nationalbusiness systems on CSR is as strong as in Russia. Overall, there issignificant room for research on CSR in Russia, as the existingliterature does not match the importance of the country as theworld's eighth largest economy.

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