Understanding corporate social responsibility (CSR) practice implementation within multinational enterprises (MNEs) is of upmost importance for creating a more sustainable business world. While existing research acknowledges the individual-level discretion related to CSR implementation, it is still unclear how and why this discretion can influence variability in CSR implementation within MNEs. Through a comparative case study of 4 MNEs based on 73 semi-structured interviews across subsidiaries and headquarters, this study investigates how subsidiary managers’ professional and organizational identifications influence their CSR implementation approach. Our findings show that the relative salience of different identification targets in a subsidiary managers’ identity salience hierarchy, i.e. the strength of identification with the CSR profession, the subsidiary, and/or the MNE as a whole, influences whether subsidiaries comply with the global CSR strategy, translate it to their own needs, or go it alone and ignore the global strategy. We also find that the salience of subsidiary managers’ identifications are impacted by their perception of the global CSR strategy and the relationship with their headquarters. This suggest that a personal relationship and clarity of a strategy can shape identification. With these findings, we showcase the importance of professional- and organization identification, headquarters-subsidiary relationships and a clear global strategy for strategy implementation within MNEs. Our research contributes to international management, CSR, and strategy scholarship by offering a deeper understanding of individual-level drivers of subsidiary CSR implementation.
