An empirical analysis of 135 US pharmaceutical firms and 3,393 subsidiaries from 2013-2020 supported the view that CSR builds legitimacy and local embeddedness associated with foreign knowledge acquisition. CSR also weakened the negative relationship between financial/operational efficiency and knowledge activity. These are US-firm data, not Thai corporate outcomes.
Key findings
- Results supported a positive CSR-knowledge acquisition association and a moderating effect whereby CSR reduced the negative link between efficiency focus and knowledge activity. Coefficient magnitudes are absent from the abstract.
Why this matters globally
Multinationals need trust with partners, communities and subsidiaries to access local knowledge. The study connects sustainability with cross-border innovation in an R&D-intensive industry.
Thai researcher contribution
NIDA researchers developed and tested the framework in global pharmaceutical networks, demonstrating Thai scholarly contribution despite non-Thai data.
Limitations to consider
The sample is US pharmaceuticals; CSR and knowledge proxies may be incomplete. Reverse causality and management-quality confounding remain, subsidiaries are nested rather than fully independent, and results should not be generalized directly to all sectors or Thailand.
Verify the original sources
Business Strategy & DevelopmentRead the original article↗DOI: 10.1002/bsd2.70383