There is increasing pressure on multinational enterprises (MNEs) to push the sustainable development goals global agenda forward. Multinationals are amongst the firms most exposed to the tensions and trade-offs between social, environmental, and economic aspects of growth. Although we are reminded of firms’ efforts to engage in CSR, we know little of the real consequences on MNE investment. We explore the questions that do socially responsible firms protect high standards of social performance when investing in international markets? And when are firms open to adapt to weaker host market CSR norms? Contrary to most previous studies, we used a sample of 13,779 FDI events between 2013 and 2019 and found that socially responsible MNEs do not necessarily ‘protect’ their reputation by investing in international markets to maintain control over their operations. In fact, the top social performers, tend to opt for local partnerships when they are faced with normative, CSR distance between the home and host country.
