A Perspective of Indian Corporates towards CSR for Building Sustainable Businesses

With the Schedule VII of the Companies Act 2013 as well as the provisions of the Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Rules, 2014 which came into effect from April 1, 2014, CSR has no more remained a philanthropic activity to be carried out by the corporate voluntarily. Our study would help understand the current perspective of corporate towards CSR. This would create a guideline for the companies to frame policies for CSR and also a list of activities for companies to implement under their CSR initiatives. This paper would help us understand the motivation behind adopting CSR initiatives and Company's expectation of benefits that they would receive by implementing CSR activities in their organization.

The findings of the pilot study were that companies with financial stability only would like to conduct CSR activities. It is considered as a philanthropic activity to create a good corporate citizen image in the mind of the stakeholders to increase sustainability of their businesses. Majority of the companies conduct CSR activities due to influence of their Business Associates (National as well as International). Media also plays an influential role motivating companies to conduct CSR activities. Most of the companies conduct or want to conduct CSR activities for general environmental and social good but most of them do not choose to employ CSR activities with direct benefits for the employees other than health and safety measures for their employees.

The key motivators for the companies to conduct CSR activities would be government giving financial incentives for CSR and award schemes for recognition creating good brand image for long term business profits.