Influence of National Culture in Companies with Different Ownership on Employees’ CSR Perception in a Developing Country: The Case of Serbia

Abstract

Starting from the fact that perceptions of employees might be related to national culture and our previous finding that CSR perception by employees depends on company ownership, in the present research, we aim at the investigation of relations between CSR and national culture perception by employees’ dependence on company ownership in the specific context of Serbia as a developing post-socialist country. Questionnaire-based research was conducted among employees in public and private companies in Serbia with domestic and foreign ownership. The results pointed out that both CSR and national culture perceptions are highly dependent on company ownership with the dependence of CSR perception on national culture perception by employees in public but not private companies. The obtained results point out that in private companies, excessive adoption of managerial practices not aligned with national culture resulted in shifts in perception of national culture, as well as in divergence between national culture and perceptions of CSR activities.