The drivers and barriers of corporate social responsibility: A comparison of the MENA region and Western countries

: Although numerous articles have been published to address drivers or barriers of corpo-8 rate social responsibility (CSR), some parts of the world have received less attention. In this study, I reviewed the literature, from 2010 to 2021, to identify drivers and barriers of CSR in the the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and compare them with the findings in western countries. (2) Methods: For this study, I used a structured literature review method. By setting the inclusion 12 and exclusion criteria, only 28 articles remained from selected database; (3) Results: The findings revealed some CSR drivers, such as leadership styles, profitability, reputation, moral commitment, and environmental conservation are common in both regions. There are also some differences be-15 tween CSR drivers, for example religious beliefs, low concentration of ownership, and company characteristics are some of the drivers in the MENA region. Maintaining social license to operate, avoiding the risks of community opposition, pressure from the government, and consumer demand tend to be more important in western countries. Common barriers in both regions are lack of finan-19 cial resources, cost, lack of CSR knowledge and awareness, and ownership concentration. This re-20 view also highlighted that lack of law enforcement, lack of stakeholder communication, lack of man-21 agement commitment, lack of interests, corruption, and financial debts are some of the addressed barriers of CSR in the MENA region, while cost/benefit ratio, lack of customer interest, and lack of scientific frameworks are the special barriers in western countries. (4) Conclusions: While research-24 ers in western countries have more focus on energy sector, there is a lack of research about


Introduction
Across the globe, CSR is a famous and widespread concept. From political leaders 31 and corporations to marketing and human resource practitioners, people have discussed 32 this topic in detail. In this era, anyone who watches television or reads news will see mul-33 tiple reports about for-profit companies' social activities, which mainly relate to protec-34 tion and welfare of the environment and civil society. CSR is the act of adding ethical and 35 moral responsibilities in an organization's goals and decision-making strategies [1]. In 36 1999, Carroll declared that large corporations have great decision-making power to influ- 37 ence the lives of everyone in society, and these decisions should be made by company 38 leaders, based on societal values [2]. Nowadays, CSR activities have become a wide range 39 of programs that highly impact an organization's core values. These activities are mainly 40 focused on internal/external issues such as employees' work-life balance, employee needs, 41 workplace safety, sustainability, human resource management, the environment, poverty, 42 and community development [1]. considering geographical locations. Drivers point out to elements that predict the CSR 47 practices and policies, and barriers address obstacles of implementing CSR practices and 48 policies. In this study, I reviewed 28 journal articles from developing and developed coun- 49 tries from 2010 to 2021 and found out how drivers and barriers of CSR from different 50 cultures and industries could be similar/different. In this study, the main question is what 51 are the drivers and barriers of CSR? And, as a follow up question, I am trying to define if 52 CSR drivers and barriers are distinct in different geographical regions. Despite extensive 53 research on CSR, there is still limited knowledge on comparing CSR in western countries 54 (In this article, western countries only consist of Australia, North America, and European 55 countries) with rest of the world. This review will offer fresh and updated insights into 56 the growing CSR literature. 57 58 Practitioners have used many different terms to address CSR practices, such as social 59 responsibility of business, corporate responsibility, corporate citizenship, business re-60 sponsibility, corporate social performance, corporate sustainability, corporate supply 61 chain social responsibility, and corporate conscience. Reviewing the literature revealed 62 that there is no single, generally accepted definition for CSR [2]. However, in Social Re-63 sponsibilities of the Businessman, the author proposed one of the earliest definitions for 64 social responsibility of business [5]. According to Carroll, who also proposed one of the 65 most influential definitions for CSR [6], in 1960, Keith Davis provided a leading and cru-66 cial definition for CSR [7]. The commission of the European communities-also known as 67 the European Commission-release CSR definitions every year since 2001 and their defi-68 nitions have been referred several times by academic scholars [9,10,11]. In table 1, I pro-69 vided 10 'well known' definitions of CSR. Author (year) Definition Bowen (1953) "The obligations of businessmen to pursue those policies, to make those decisions, or to follow those line of actions which are desirable in terms of the objectives and values of our society" (p. 6).

Definition of Corporate Social Responsibility
Keith Davis (1960) "Businessmen's decisions and actions taken for reasons at least partially beyond the firm's direct economic or technical interest" (p. 70) Friedman (1970) "Corporate social responsibility is to conduct the business in accordance with shareholders' desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom" (p.32).

Carroll (1979)
''The social responsibility of business encompasses the economic, legal, ethical and discretionary expectations that society has of organizations at a given point of time'' (p. 500).
Maignan and Ferrell, (2000) "The extent to which businesses meet the economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary responsibilities imposed on them by their stakeholders" (p. 284). McWilliams and Siegel (2001) "Situations where the firm goes beyond compliance and engages in actions that appear to further some social good, beyond the interests of the firm and that which is required by law" (p. 117 ).

Rupp et al. (2006)
''Activities, decisions, or policies, that organizations engage in to effect positive social change and environmental sustainability'' (p. 537).
European Commission (2011) "The responsibility of enterprises for their impact on society." [8] Aguinis and Glavas (2012) "Context-specific organizational actions and policies that take into account stakeholders' expectations and the triple bottom line of economic, social, and environmental performance" (p.933).

Rasche et al. (2017)
"The integration of an enterprise's social, environmental, ethical and philanthropic responsibilities towards society into its operations, processes and core business strategy in cooperation with relevant stakeholders" (p.6).

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Scholars do not have an agreement on dimensions of CSR, but the majority of CSR pioneers 73 include, stakeholders, social, and environmental dimensions as the foundation [12, 13,14]. 74 McWilliams and Siegel affirmed that CSR has two dimensions of social and voluntariness, 75 as social responsibility goes beyond economic and legal dimensions [15]. Other researchers 76 proposed CSR focus needs to be on community, environment, employees, and customers 77 [16,17]. They excluded the government and economic dimensions of CSR and affirmed legal 78 requirements are not part of CSR activities [16]. To reduce the chance of collecting unrelated articles Abstract must show clear indication of drivers or barriers of corporate social responsibility.
The focus of the research is to study drivers and barriers of corporate social responsibility Country/geographical region need to be clear in the abstract and has to be among MENA or western countries.
I aim to compare CSR drivers by categorizing them into two groups based on cultural similarities and geographical locations.

Article must be written in English
English is the dominating research language in the field of corporate social responsibility.
Article must be Qualitative, Quantitative, or mixed method I only wanted to analyze empirical studies.

Only empirical articles from 2010
To focus on the current drivers and barriers. An inclusive approach would demand to include all of the 406 articles from Western 113 countries for the review, but this way was deemed inefficient while I only had 9 articles 114 from the MENA region to compare. Alternatively, I decided to adopt a statistical method 115 to form a representative random sample from the 406 articles. To be ninety percent certain 116 of being accurate to within +0.1, and -0.1 of the true proportion of all articles, a minimum 117 sample size of 41 articles was needed from this region [21]. I increased the sample to 60 118 articles to lower the probability of Type II error. In the second step, I followed the inclu-119 sion criteria rules (table 2). Initially, I reviewed only abstracts and skimmed the method-120 ology section to determine relevancy of the articles and in the final step, reviewing the 121 chosen one in depth. I reviewed articles that contained drivers of CSR in depth. A total of 122 19 articles were selected to compare with 9 articles from the MENA region. By identifying 123 irrelevant papers in the final step, only 28 papers remained in this selection process (figure 124 1).   analyzes the link between board characteristics and CSR. They revealed women are 233 more sensitive to CSR engagement and ethical challenges, therefore, board gender diver-234 sity has positive impact on CSR implementation [41]. 235 Chkanikova and Mont identified the drivers and barriers for Sweden food retailers [42]. 236 Pressure from the government and European Union, strengthening reputation and 237 brand name, and consumer demand for greener and healthier products are some of the 238 drivers. They also found many retailers engaged in socially responsible activities such as 239 improving eco-efficiency to reduce the operational costs. Another driver is industrial 240 norms, agreements, and certifications that force retailors to follow the agreement for sus-241 tainability improvement. Another study in Sweden found that CSR is an outcome of em-242 ployees' motivations in workplace [43]. The study also described that CSR implementa-243 tion in SMEs in the apparel industry is driven by employees' perceptions of moral re-244 sponsibility for CSR [43]. 245 One study analyzed the gas mining industry in Australia and summarized the main rea-246 son for participation in CSR is to maintain their social license to operate and avoid the 247 risks of community opposition [44]. Another study reviewed the literature to identify Shell which is one of the biggest corporations in the oil sector and found profitability is 254 one of the key drivers of CSR programs [47]. 255 Lozano defined the drivers of CSR participation could be due to internal or external 256 motivations [29]. dustries and found more concentrated ownership is a barrier to CSR [49]. 270 Fabrizi, Mallin, and Michelon studied 597 US firms and found out personal incentives of 271 CEOs had the significant effect on CSR decisions of companies, for instance CEOs who 272 are new to the company (or role) and need to gain legitimacy from stakeholders are 273 more likely to engage in CSR activities [50]. There is a need to certain level of financial freedom before investments in CSR can be 298 expected from SMEs [30]. It is also suggested that implementing CSR needs a capacity to 299 devote time, knowledge and facility in an area where no immediate returns on invest-300 ment could be expected. Laudal called the two mentioned barriers as insufficient 301 cost/benefit ratio and external control which are two factors for SMEs that make CSR 302 practices unreachable source of competitive edge. He also addressed ''internal control'' 303 as one major barrier for large MNEs, and found when the number of suppliers and inter-304 nal departments increase, the self-interest of each gent may be in conflict with the CSR 305 objectives and create a barrier for CSR implementation [30]. 306 Chkanikova and Mont addressed several barriers that retailers are facing to enroll in 307 socially responsible actions [42]. They found lack of governmental leadership to support 308 the transition, lack of financial resources, lack of knowledge and expertise, and high 309 costs of sustainable products are some of the barriers. Globalization and competitive 310 environment in retail industry caused that customers search for cheap food or product. 311 This barrier created a challenging situation for supermarkets to implement sustainability 312 improvements. 313 One study mentioned there are several barriers for organizations to implement CSR in 314 Iran [37]. Culturally people tend to keep their charitable acts and good deeds confiden-315 tial. businessowners prefer to participate in socially responsible activities confidentially 316 for religious beliefs and not to show off or take advantage out of it for their lives. Due to 317 economic condition in Iran, entrepreneurs are more focused on short-term goals than on 318 developing longer-term strategies such as CSR. He also found that many business own-319 ers believe the government should be more accountable for social responsibility. Lack of 320 knowledge is also another addressed barrier [37]. 321 El-Bassiouny conducted a qualitative study in Egyptian companies and concluded that 322 the main barriers on CSR implementation are ineffective regulatory and governance sys-323 tems, high levels of corruption, lack of top management commitment, and insufficient 324 levels of CSR expertise [55]. Alotaibi, Edum-Fotwe, and Price studied the barriers to CSR 325 implementation within construction industry in Saudi Arabia [56]. They identified 326 eleven CSR barriers by reviewing the literature and interviewing with local CSR experts, 327 then they surveyed 137 respondents from two companies HR and overarching manage-328 ment departments. Their finding revealed there are seven main barriers for CSR such as: 329 additional costs; lack of awareness and knowledge; lack of guidelines and coherent strat-330 egy; lack of stakeholder communication; lack of law enforcement; lack of training; and 331 unclear project requirements. 332 Fabrizi, Mallin, and Michelon claimed CEO's and shareholders' monetary interests have 333 a negative effect on CSR implementation [50]. [57] tried to identify the main barriers of  individual level: company's negative contribution to society; decision-making based on egocentrism; lack of CSR fit, motivation, and commitment; lack of CSR knowledge and awareness; lack of CSR leadership; lack of organizational support; and negative attitude toward CSR Organizational level: lack of flexibility and adaptability; lack of integration of CSR to the core business; lack of organizational trust; lack of understanding of the context; limited access to resources; misalignment of the corporate culture; and unfit Nordic countries/ Qualitative/ energy sector organizational structure institutional level: cognitive; normative, and regulatory barriers

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This review of the literature indicates that empirical research on CSR drivers and 342 barriers is very limited in the MENA region. For this region, only nine papers have been 343 found during the literature review process and four out of nine studies collected their data 344 without having focus on any specific industry, while the rest have analyzed manufactur-345 ing, trading, service, mining, and construction industries. In contrast, researchers in west-346 ern countries have more focus on the energy sector by having five studies have concen-347 trated on the energy industry. Majority of studies in western countries were Qualitative 348 (eleven out of nineteen) while only three out of nine studies in the MENA region were 349 Qualitative. This study was not able to identify CSR drivers or barriers in some industries, 350 such as healthcare and hospitality, due to lack of research in these sectors. 351 In order to fill the gap, researchers need to focus on energy related companies, in-352 cluding oil and gas corporations in the MENA region. This region is a particularly inter-353 esting area to study social responsibility drivers and barriers because of its historical and 354 cultural heritage. The region was the place of Persia and Kemet which were two of the 355 oldest civilizations in the world with histories of valuing societal concerns. Other coun-356 tries also have very rich cultural backgrounds; at the same time, MENA has the world's 357 largest oil reserves and is responsible for the vast amounts of toxic air and water pollution 358 and is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the world. There is a need 359 to have more focus on this sector to identify the main drivers and barriers of CSR and plan 360 for more engagement in effective activities and reduce their impact on the climate crisis. There are several limitations that have to be considered. This review was limited to 363 only empirical articles that have been published after 2010 in the English language. The 364 selection of the publications was also limited to four scientific databases and followed a 365 specific selection criterion. The research was conducted with limited keywords, which left 366 out some articles that haven't included my chosen keywords. While each country has its 367 own laws and legislation, culture, economic and political situations, I compared the driv-368 ers and barriers of CSR without considering any of the mentioned characteristics. The 369 mentioned limitations create potential for future research to consider other strategies and 370 methods within the CSR literature, as well as other primary sources of information, such 371 as analyzing how organizations implement CSR in each country. 372 373 Based on a systematic literature review of 28 journal articles, this study investigated 374 and compared the drivers and barriers influencing CSR implementation in the MENA 375 region with western countries. My analysis shows some of the CSR drivers such as lead-376 ership styles, profitability, reputation, moral commitment, and environmental conserva-377 tion are similar in both regions. There are also some differences between CSR drivers, for 378 example, religious beliefs, low concentration of ownership, and company characteristics 379 are some of the drivers of CSR in the MENA region. Maintaining social license to operate, 380 avoiding the risks of community opposition, pressure from the government, and con-381 sumer demand tend to be more important in western countries. 382 I also found there are common barriers in both regions, such as lack of financial re-383 sources, cost, lack of CSR knowledge and awareness, and ownership concentration. This 384 review also discovered that lack of law enforcement, lack of stakeholder communication, 385 lack of management commitment, lack of interests, corruption, and financial debts are 386 some of the addressed barriers of CSR in the MENA region, while cost/benefit ratio, lack 387 of customer interest, and lack of scientific frameworks are the special barriers in western 388 countries. 389 This information is significant because it indicated there is a gap in CSR literature, 390 and the MENA region in specific has not been studied in depth by researchers; there is 391 room for future research. While electricity and transportation sectors as well as oil and 392 gas companies are the main contributors to global emissions, there is a vital need to un-393 derstand what drives these companies towards socially responsible business practices. 394 Future studies could also conduct comparative studies between different industries to 395 identify the differences and similarities of CSR drivers and barriers in various industries. 396 The findings also reveal that there are many countries in the MENA region that have 397 not been analyzed. Future research could also consider focusing on the neglected areas. 398 Another key area that seems to be missing in the literature is the understanding of the role 399 the COVID-19 pandemic had on CSR implementation in the emerging and developed 400 countries. Due to the fast-growing wave of globalization, it is critical for multi-national 401 companies to discover all of the CSR drivers and barriers in different regions to become 402 more successful internationally. It is also noted that CSR barriers and drivers are varied 403 based on geographical locations.