Narratives of Socially Responsible Behaviour of Indian Companies

Abstract

The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has gained importance in the contemporary business, management practices and politics (U N Global compact, 2000), gradually evolving over the past several decades to reach its current status and understanding. newlineAcademically, it has been studied through multiple lenses, depending on a variety of factors newlinesuch as nation, culture, social issues, economic problems, and the industry that CSR itself is newlinebeing incorporated into. In India, the literature traces an overarching role of tradition, spirituality and ethics in the evolution of CSR (Balasubramanian et al., 2005; Mohan, 2001; Kumar, 2013). India, as a country is dealing with several developmental issues and currently newlinefar exceeds the governmental capacity to accomplish it. The CSR horizon in India is witnessing newlinea rapid transition. Also, the introduction of Companies Act, 2013 has changed the newlineunderstanding of the concept for many corporates. Considering this backdrop, it was essential to look at the understanding of CSR in the specific socio-cultural settings of India. Although the CSR implementation take place at the organizational level of analysis, individual actors are those who actually strategize, make decisions, and execute the initiatives. newlineThis research attempts to understand the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility as newlineperceived by the organisations in India. The initial secondary research of the Top 100 newlinecompanies according to their CSR spends gave insights into the CSR mechanism of the Indian newlinecorporates. It served as a basis for identification of a specific research idea that was further supplemented and given a proper shape after assessing previous studies on the examined phenomenon. The identified limitations and gaps in academic research served for development newlineof research questions. This was followed by the content analysis of the 27 corporate websites which essentially provided 9 major dimensions of CSR and the resultant activities that ascribe to these dimensions.