Beyond Corporate Social Responsibility: Foundations and global retailers

This paper focuses on institutional philanthropy by retail firms, utilizing foundations connected to the top 50 global retailers as a case study. The purpose of this research is threefold: 1) To explore the philanthropic propensity of global retailers; 2) To define a typology of foundations connected to them; and 3) To explore the role played by those foundations in the context of the CSR strategies of their connected firms. Results confirm, on the one hand, the high philanthropic propensity of top global retailers and, on the other hand, that potential benefits of connected instrumental foundations go beyond those attributed to conventional CSR and traditional corporate giving by previous literature.