Exploring Muslim Attitudes Towards Corporate Social Responsibility: Are Saudi Business Students Different?

Maurice J. Murphy (), Jason B. MacDonald (), Giselle E. Antoine () and Jan M. Smolarski ()
Additional contact information
Maurice J. Murphy: Alfaisal University
Jason B. MacDonald: Boise State University
Giselle E. Antoine: Alfaisal University
Jan M. Smolarski: Alfaisal University

Journal of Business Ethics, 2019, vol. 154, issue 4, No 16, 1103-1118

Abstract: Abstract This study investigates potential differences in attitudes towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) between Saudis and Muslims from other predominately Islamic countries. We propose that Saudi Arabia’s unique rentier-state welfare and higher education systems account for these distinctions. In evaluating our propositions, we replicate Brammer et al. (J Bus Eth 71(3):229–243, 2007) survey on attitudes towards CSR using a sample of Saudi undergraduate and graduate business students and compare the results against data from subjects in other majority Muslim countries. In addition, this work examines possible differences within the Saudi sample with respect to sex and academic level. Our results indicate that our Saudi subjects maintain higher expectations for corporations’ social responsibility within their supply chain than the Brammer et al.’s sample. In contrast, Muslims in the Brammer et al.’s sample hold higher expectations for corporations in supporting societal development and poverty alleviation in comparison to the Saudi sample. We also find within the Saudi sample that females and subjects at higher academic levels are more inclined to hold corporations responsible for social issues related to CSR than males and subjects in lower academic levels. We examine these findings, explore their implications, and propose areas for future research.

Keywords: AACSB; Business ethics education; CSR attitudes; Islam; Middle East; Saudi Arabia; Rentier states (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-016-3383-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:154:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1007_s10551-016-3383-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-016-3383-4

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().