Indira Management Review

Pravin Dange ¹, S. K. Bose ², S. P. Kallurkar ³

Affiliations
1 Indira School of Business Studies, Pune, IN
2 Department of Management, BIT- Mesra, Ranchi, Jharkhand -83521, IN
3 A. G. Patil Institute of Technology, Pratap Nagar, Solapur -413004, IN

Abstract

Baron (2001) insisted that in order to receive a CSR label both motivation and performance are critical. Based on the review of literature, this paper observes the dichotomy of CSR perspectives and identifies two kinds of motivations for firms to engage in CSR activities: one driven by expectation of benefit named as strategic motivation and the other one without any such expectation named as altruistic CSR. It classifies the literature along the dichotomy and identifies a probable global trend towards strategic CSR based on the evidences from literature and industry practices. Indian CSR had traditionally not been strategic in nature and mostly driven by the trusteeship concept prevalent historically. In order to know whether Indian firms are also driven by strategic motive, the paper evolves ten-item scale to measure the motivations, validates it using data collected from 142 businesses professional. Analysis of the data using factor analysis and crosstabs is done to understand the motivations of Indian firms to engage in CSR. The analysis reveals and confirms the motivational categories of strategic and altruistic motivation. It also validates the scale measuring motivations. The key outcomes of the work are majority of Indian firms have not been predominantly driven by strategic motivation and altruistic perspective continues to dominate them. The paper also confirms the existence of an industry specific pattern of motivations to engage in CSR. This research is expected to contribute to building awareness amongst corporate about strategic CSR, and further the cause of CSR theory building efforts.

Keywords

Corporate Social Responsibility, Motivation, CSR in India Strategic Motivation, Altruistic Motivation, Measuring Motivation, CSR Drivers.

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Pravin Dange ¹, S. P. Singh ²

Affiliations
1 Indira School of Business Studies, IN
2 Indira Institute of Management, Pune, IN

Abstract

The concept of CSR originated in thie fifties of tfie last century wlien Howard R Bowen wrote a seminal book Ttie Social Responsibilities of a Businessman (Carroll takes him to be the father of CSR (Carroll, 1999)) Since then the notion of CSR has come to dominate the society business interface and many theories and approaches have been proposed, many definitions have also been given in order to understand and explain the concept. Although the concept has normative origins, a lot of literature has attempted to give positive hue to the concept by linking firm's performance with the performance on CSR. Some have gone ahead and suggested that the CSR notion can be strategically used by companies to gain competitive advantage while some continue to take the stance that it is the moral duty of a business to be socially responsible regardless of its impact on the profitability of the company. The CSR literature is dominated by this dichotomy of approaches mentioned hereinafter as altruistic CSR and strategic CSR. The paper takes a critical look at these two approaches and attempts to define the notion of CSR and its two dimensions strategic and altruistic CSR

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