How Corporate Social Responsibility Helps MNEs to Improve their Reputation. The Moderating Effects of Geographical Diversification and Operating in Developing Regions Aguilera-Caracuel, Javier Guerrero-Villegas, Jaime Guerrero-Villegas, Jaime Corporate social responsibility Corporate reputation Corporate social performance Multinational enterprises Geographical diversification Developing regions Stakeholder engagement This research has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (Research Projects ECO2013-47009-P; ECO2014-58799-R and ECO2016-75909-P), the Regional Government of Andalusia (Excellence Research Project P11-SEJ-7988), the Business and Economics School of the University of Granada (programa de ayuda para traducciones), and PAI Group SEJ-111 “Information, environment and organizational change.” We thank members of ISDE research group (SEJ-481, University of Granada) and members of the Management and Marketing Department of University Pablo de Olavide. Multinational enterprises (MNEs) can enhance their reputations through advanced social initiatives and management practices. These firms often locate facilities in developing countries to benefit from lax environmental and social regulations, and to reduce their operating costs. MNEs can, however, also contribute positively to the development of those countries through corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. This paper argues that MNEs operating in developing regions can enhance their level of corporate reputation through the implementation of CSR initiatives that meet specific stakeholders’ expectations of the firm’s activities in these areas. In addition, we argue that MNEs with units based in different regions strengthen the impact of corporate social performance on corporate reputation. Based on a sample of 113 US MNEs from the chemical, energy, and industrial machinery industries over the period 2005–2010, our findings show that CSR has a positive effect on corporate reputation. In addition, MNEs’ operations in developing regions intensify the positive relationship between corporate social performance and reputation, although geographical diversification does not necessarily enhance MNEs’ reputation through corporate social performance. 2024-03-06T09:57:28Z 2024-03-06T09:57:28Z 2018 journal article Published version: Aguilera‐Caracuel, J., & Guerrero‐Villegas, J. (2018). How corporate social responsibility helps MNEs to improve their reputation. The moderating effects of geographical diversification and operating in developing regions. Corporate social responsibility and environmental management, 25(4), 355-372. DOI: 10.1002/csr.1465 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/89822 10.1002/csr.1465 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ open access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional Wiley