The pyramid of corporate social responsibility model: Empirical evidence from India

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There has been an increasing interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) worldwide. Many CSR concepts have been proposed based on the premise that the business institutions are part of the society. A set of CSR concepts as proposed by Carroll (1991), is utilized by this study. This concept which is known as the Pyramid of CSR suggests that CSR is basically presented by four dimensions namely economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic in their respective order of importance. This concept is widely tested in the literature and most of them are examined from the western countries’ perspectives. Despite the extensiveness of empirical research on CSR this concept was not tested in India. Therefore, this study provides empirical evidence from Indian stakeholders’ perspectives on CSR concept proposed by Carroll (1991). The study surveys a sample of 300 respondents. The result shows that ranking of dimensions by the Indian stakeholder was totally different from the idealized model suggesting cultural factor as contributing to the differences. The study also highlighted whether demographic variable contributes to the differences in perception.