Skip to main content
profile image
Selected Works of Subrata Chakrabarty
Article
The long-term sustenance of sustainability practices in MNCs: A dynamic capabilities perspective of the role of R&D and internationalization
Journal of Business Ethics (2012)
  • Subrata Chakrabarty
  • Liang(Lucas) Wang
Download
Abstract
What allows MNCs to maintain their sustainability practices over the long term? This is an important but under-examined question. To address this question, we investigate both the development and sustenance of sustainability practices. We use the dynamic capabilities perspective, rooted in resource-based view literature, as the theoretical basis. We argue that MNCs that simultaneously pursue both higher R&D intensity and higher internationalization are more capable of developing and maintaining sustainability practices. We test our hypotheses using longitudinal panel data from 1989 to 2009. Results suggest that MNCs that have a combination of both high R&D intensity and high internationalization are (i) likely to develop more sustainability practices and (ii) are likely to maintain more of those practices over a long term. As a corollary, MNCs that have a combination of both low R&D and low internationalization usually (i) end up developing little or no sustainability practices and (ii) find it difficult to sustain whatever little sustainability practices they might have developed. 

-----

Keywords
  • Corporate Social Responsibility,
  • Sustainability,
  • R&D,
  • Innovation,
  • Multinational,
  • Internationalization,
  • Dynamic Capabilities,
  • Resource Based View
Disciplines
Publication Date
2012
DOI
10.1007/s10551-012-1422-3
Publisher Statement

Citation Information
Chakrabarty, S., & Wang, L. 2012. The long-term sustenance of sustainability practices in MNCs: A dynamic capabilities perspective of the role of R&D and internationalization. Journal of Business Ethics, 110(2): 205-217.