CSR Practices among Public and Private Sector Companies: A Community Development Approach in Indian context

Abstract

Business environment today and the higher expectation of the stakeholders demand for good CSR programmes bringing in greater benefits. Besides the key stakeholders such as the Government, investors and customers, community come out as important stakeholders who actually provide the license to the corporate to operate. The companies have already realized that it is the communities surrounding their vicinity that they have to satisfy to maintain their operations. Through good CSR interventions the companies can attract, retain and motivate their employees. CSR practices benefit the community by enhancing their livelihood and increasing their income levels and become corporate citizens. Corporate social responsibility becomes a way of promoting good company practices wherein the private sector is encouraged to be more engaged in social mission. The paper attempts to show the CSR practices across public and private sectors in an Indian context by taking few companies as sample study. The research is carried on by secondary sources of information through the reported information of the company's annual sustainability reports. The results show that the Private sector companies are spending more on CSR and community and in a better strategic manner compared to the Public sectors that basically focus on issue based requirement of the community.