Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs) have increasingly engaged in outward foreign direct investment in recent years, and particularly into the infrastructure sector of developing economies. This has been prompted by the infrastructure-led economic integration plan of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. However, such collaboration faces many challenges. Infrastructure projects are often undertaken in industries, countries, and regions posing particular and difficult challenges, and with divergent, often conflicting interests, with the ensuing conclusion that the MNE is simply exploiting the project and not delivering value to the host country. Overall, not only does the infrastructure project have to be well-functioning with expected returns (or savings) realized, but these projects face close scrutiny from local communities, labor, opposition parties, neighboring countries, and various international bodies and nonprofits, requiring delicate handling of the principals involved. The unfolding of these issues and their management by the multinational are examined through an in-depth longitudinal case study. The data are drawn from major participants and stakeholders around a leading Chinese MNE and the mega project of the construction of a major hydropower plant in Pakistan.

Today it is obvious that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is more than just a volunteer activity, it is also related to the operation of the firms and to competitive advantages. Many factors influence CSR and CSR-competitiveness relations; firm size could be the most crucial one. Originally CSR is related to large companies, although smaller firms can be active in CSR mainly in different ways with different background. Based on this idea the paper aims to explore the correlation between small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) corporate social responsibility (CSR) and competitive advantages. An interview research was conducted among thirty SMEs in a Hungarian city of Győr in 2021/22 to reveal how owner-managers interpret CSR, competitiveness and their relations. As SMEs cannot provide exact data on this topic the personal perception method was used to explore the CSR-competitiveness relation. A moderate relation was observed between CSR and competitiveness and the research revealed that different methodologies have to be applied for SMEs than large companies which results from the fact that SMEs’ CSR is less formal and lacks exact data.

Low-cost housing homeownership funding for junior staffers is challenging in private sector organisations, especially in developing countries. Motivating private sector investment in junior staffers’ homeownership via a developed expanded corporate social responsibility (ECSR) may promote achieving Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG 11). Therefore, the study investigates the role of the ECSR framework in improving Nigeria’s private sector junior staffers’ homeownership and achieving SDG 11. Data were collected via face-to-face interviews with selected participants in six of Nigeria’s geo-political zones. The study adopted thematic analysis to analyse the collected data. Six variables emerged from the 18 re-clustered sub-variables. This includes institutionalising ECSR in low-income homeownership, housing finance for junior staffers’ homeownership, and housing incentives and stakeholders’ participation for low-income earners. The research employed six variables and 18 sub-variables to develop the improved private sector’s junior staffers’ homeownership via ECSR and achieving SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities) and their targets. The research presents a novel approach by attempting to integrate SDG 11 with Corporate Social Housing, an extension of corporate social responsibility, especially to align the SDGs with evolving perspectives on Expanded Corporate Social Responsibility in Nigeria.

This article examines the overseas corporate social responsibility (CSR) patterns of Chinese international contractors (CICs). Adopting an institutional and political economy approach, a unique dataset is constructed with country-specific contents drawn from CSR-related reports and website information of 50 top CICs. This dataset provides a foundation for systematic content analysis of CICs’ overseas CSR practices, revealing that both political legitimacy-seeking and strategic competitiveness-seeking motivations drive CICs’ CSR activities abroad, characterized by the prioritization of customer and community engagement. The findings highlight the coexistence of the exogenous pressures for the national image-building purpose and the endogenous awareness of CSR strategic importance for corporate internationalization. The hybridization of political and economic rationales is presented as the defining feature of CICs’ current overseas CSR patterns, with the balance between them being determined by stakeholder type and internal business needs influenced by corporate internationalization experience.