CSR Outcomes Research Articles

CSR in the Indian Context: Determinants and Outcomes

Compared to the West, there are few studies of the relationship between CSR and financial performance outcomes in the Asian context, especially India. This is unfortunate, given recent evidence tha...

Bettering Corporate Social Responsibility through Empowerment and Effective Engagement Practices: An Australian Mining Perspective

Stakeholder literature has affirmed the importance of stakeholder engagement to CSR, but little research has investigated the saliency of weak stakeholders or the development of relationships between weak stakeholders and businesses. The proposed study investigates how empowerment and engagement can influence CSR practices and outcomes. The case study approach for this proposed study uses a naturalistic and interpretivist paradigm. Qualitative primary data will be collected via focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews with sampled communities, representatives of case companies, and sampled stakeholder institutions. Content analysis will be done on secondary data from sampled companies. The study aims to develop a framework that makes empirical, policy, and theoretical contributions to the discourse on stakeholder salience, corporate-community partnerships and CSR practice.

CSR schemes in agribusiness: opening the black box

PurposeThe rise of CSR followed a demand for CSR standards and guidelines. In a sector already characterized by a large number of standards, the authors seek to ask what CSR schemes apply to agribusiness, and how they can be systematically compared and analysed.Design/methodology/approachFollowing a deductive‐inductive approach the authors develop a model to compare and analyse CSR schemes based on existing studies and on coding qualitative data on 216 CSR schemes.FindingsThe authors confirm that CSR standards and guidelines have entered agribusiness and identify a complex landscape of schemes that can be categorized on focus areas, scales, mechanisms, origins, types and commitment levels.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings contribute to conceptual and empirical research on existing models to compare and analyse CSR standards. Sampling technique and depth of analysis limit this research, but the authors offer insights into patterns of CSR standard development in agribusiness and point to important research avenues.Practical implicationsThese findings can help agribusiness managers to select and analyse CSR standards and other forms of CSR guidance.Social implicationsStandard and guidance setting activities can be expected to have real‐life effects on CSR outcomes. These effects need to be better understood by policy makers and stakeholders. The authors' meta‐analysis contributes to further research on who or what influences standard development.Originality/valueModels to compare CSR schemes are rare and often focus on a small number of cases. The authors provide decision makers and researchers with insights into structural conditions through a meta‐analysis of a larger number of CSR schemes.

Linking corporate social responsibility with admiration through organizational outcomes

PurposeFrom the decision‐maker's viewpoint, the success of a social responsibility program rests heavily on a corporation's ability to create links in the public consciousness between the CSR activities of an organization and its performance to different stakeholders. However, thinking broadly about CSR outcomes often results in a list that is much too long to be of any practical use. The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical study to provide understanding as to why business organizations are increasingly engaging in corporate social responsibility issues.Design/methodology/approachThe paper investigates whether CSR initiatives have any impact on six organizational outcomes through an empirical investigation of 100 large firms in the Spanish MERCO (Monitor Español de Reputación Corporativa) using repeated ANOVA measures.FindingsThe results indicate that the benefits of CSR issues fall within five major categories; namely: quality of products and services, global business, innovativeness, corporate culture, and ethical obligations. However, it is surprising to find that CSR had no significant effect on financial soundness.Research limitations/implicationsThe use of admiration can enable stakeholders to develop consensus and creative processes relating to the design of new requirements where CSR activities are incorporated into business activities.Practical implicationsThe implication for management practice is that CSR activities represent a long‐term programme to change, and a proactive way to improve admiration.Originality/valueThe paper shows that social responsibility is not always detrimental to company goals and performance