Corporate social responsibility decoupling in developing countries: Current research and a future agenda

Abstract The aim of this paper is to present an institutionally grounded account of CSR decoupling in developing countries. Businesses in developing countries face institutional conditions significantly different to that in developed countries. As a result of these differences, there is an increasing demand on organizations in developing countries to comply with what are observed to be diffuse CSR standards—to which they thereby engage by decoupling. These observations result in the need to re‐examine the classic argument of decoupling and produce a more effective understanding of why and how CSR decoupling exists in such contexts. Little is known about the consequences of decoupling for organizations and society at large. We provide examples of decoupling in the developing world and present a comprehensive agenda for future research that explains why decoupling is pervasive and rapid change is, sadly, unlikely.