Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Initiatives in Asia: A Burgeoning Quintessence

Abstract:     
The theme of social responsibility is rapidly becoming a budding quintessence on the domestic as well global agenda of the corporate sector. The idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is not new. Business, through the ages, demonstrated varying degrees of responsibility to society. The present study explores global phenomenon in CSR, and examines the corporate social responsibility initiatives and trends of Indian companies on selected CSR indicators in comparison to Asia and world. The study based on secondary data observed that CSR has gone main stream for the many of the world’s companies and is headed in the same direction in India also. India has emerged as a prominent country paying an ever-increasing attention towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure. Indian companies TCS and ITC have emerged in top 10 ASR 2009 list. Indian companies have shown its presence in the top two positions in most of the CSR indicators i.e. Corporate Governance, Codes, and Policies; Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy and Communication; Corporate Environment Disclosure; Community Investment Initiatives; and total industry score. To conclude, it is evident that the concept of CSR has emerged as a promising benchmark for companies not only in Asia but across the world as a whole. However, the biggest challenge faced by companies is to develop a CSR strategy to find tangible and business focused metrics linked to ethical, social and environmental performance in order to meet stakeholder demands and expectations.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 14

working papers series