Corporate sustainable actions through United Nations sustainable development goals: The internal customer's response

Designing sustainable corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy utilizing the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) framework to deal with consumption in a sustainable and responsible fashion is increasingly a requirement in emerging economies. This paper examines sustainable social initiatives (SIs) via a CSR model and social lens as part of the SDG framework for multinational enterprises (MNEs), to determine the perception of the internal customer and stakeholder (i.e., the employee) alongside their identification and voluntary engagement in their organization's SIs. The study examines internal customers (as the employee) of two MNEs who reside in a developed country and two developing countries from emerging economies. The findings indicate that identification with the SDG-based SIs selected by MNEs for this study mediates the relationship between perception of their organization's perceived CSR and engagement in these initiatives, for employees in developing countries (and emerging markets) but not the developed country. This suggests the importance that internal employees “identify” with SDG-based SIs in emerging markets in particular and builds on significant managerial implications for MNEs in these markets alongside their voluntary work with nonprofits as part of their SIs and CSR strategy. The findings also confirm the importance of MNEs adopting SIs that are not only relevant to the global United Nations SDG framework but also relevant to the actors, collaborators, and nonprofit organizations involved in these SIs, including stakeholders and in particular the internal customer (i.e., employee) who volunteer their time to implement these SIs in the communities where MNEs reside.