Same Entry, Different Paths: CSR Trajectories of Chinese Multinationals in Serbia Under Institutional Quadrality

While the geopolitics of Chinese investment in Europe has received sustained attention, how Chinese multinational enterprises (CMNEs) govern corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the ground remains less examined. This article addresses that gap by developing an institutional quadrality framework, which conceptualizes CMNEs’ CSR governance in Europe as shaped by the interaction of four institutional environments—home-country, global, regional, and host-country—mediated through the headquarters-subsidiary interface. The framework is applied to a qualitative comparative case study of two flagship Chinese investments in Serbia: Serbia Zijin Copper and HBIS Serbia. Tracing their CSR trajectories from market entry through later operational phases, the analysis shows that the shared political canopy under which both firms entered Serbia did not determine CSR strategy or outcomes across labour, environment, and community. Divergence instead emerged from the interaction of strategic orientation, CSR governance architecture, and the uneven activation of extra-local pressures at both headquarters and subsidiary levels, despite an initial convergence around a labour-centred, environment-light, and community-thin CSR pattern shaped by host-state priorities. The article further argues that movement from philanthropic to strategic CSR does not necessarily produce participatory CSR, as both firms used CSR primarily to stabilize legitimacy and manage stakeholder demands.