Title
Attraction or distraction? Corporate social responsibility in Macao’s gambling industry
Document Type
Journal article
Source Publication
Journal of Business Ethics
Publication Date
10-1-2017
Volume
145
Issue
3
First Page
637
Last Page
658
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Keywords
Controversial industries, Corporate social responsibility, Gambling, Legitimacy, Legitimation, Responsible gambling
Abstract
This paper attempts to investigate how and why organisations in Macao’s gambling industry engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR). It is based on an in-depth investigation of Macao’s gambling industry with 49 semi-structured interviews, conducted in 2011. We found that firms within the industry were emphasising pragmatic legitimacy based on both economic and non-economic contributions, in order to project positive images of the industry, while glossing over two domains of adverse externalities: problem gambling among visitors, and the pollution and despoliation of the environment. By engaging symbolically rather than substantively in CSR, the gambling firms were diverting attention away from issues of moral legitimacy, in order to be allowed to continue to pursue “business as usual” as a means of obtaining substantial financial returns in a social, cultural and socio-political context that was exerting relatively little public pressure to improve corporate social and environmental performance. We conjecture that the gambling firms were feeding on borrowed time.
DOI
10.1007/s10551-015-2890-z
Print ISSN
01674544
E-ISSN
15730697
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 2015, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.
Full-text Version
Publisher’s Version
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Leung, T. C. H., & Snell, R. S. (2017). Attraction or distraction? Corporate social responsibility in Macao’s gambling industry. Journal of Business Ethics, 145(3), 637-658. doi: 10.1007/s10551-015-2890-z
