Philanthropic forms of corporate social responsibility practices in a multinational company: Colonial and post‐colonial perspectives

Abstract

This paper explores how colonial and post‐colonial philanthropic ideals shape a multinational shoe manufacturing company's corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. We conducted a qualitative field study in Bangladesh, analysing semi‐structured interviews and archival documents. The findings revealed significant and distinct variations in social, institutional, and political relationships across three historical periods: colonisation, state despotism, and capital imperialism. Notably, benevolence, elitism, socialist enterprise paternalism, and institutionalised strategic philanthropy ideals were found to dominate firm‐level CSR practices. These findings suggest that colonial and post‐colonial contexts can shape and ideologically frame philanthropic forms of CSR practices in organisations over time.