Reaching through the fog: Institutional environment and cross‐border giving of corporate foundations

Abstract

Corporate philanthropy has long been recognized as an important part of multinational strategy, yet we know relatively little how charitable giving is allocated across countries. Using a sample of 208 U.S.-based corporate foundations from 1993 to 2008, we find that the foundations give more in countries with opaque institutional environments, but they do so through international intermediaries. They also give more when the funding firms have new entries in countries with weak institutions—hence greater needs for the social license to operate—or when their operations require stronger connections with local suppliers or customers. These findings point to the use of corporate philanthropy as part of corporate diplomacy when the local institutions are ineffective and the importance of reaching out to local constituents is high.

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