Corporate Social Responsibility and Universities: A Study of Top 10 World Universities’ Websites

Abstract

There is a growing interest in social responsibility of the corporations among academicians and practitioners. Companies now are not only expected to be responsible to their shareholders but to society in general. Universities, as the centers of knowledge generation and sharing, play a very important role in solving world’s problems by ensuring a sustainable tomorrow. However, it is questionable whether world leading universities are concerned about CSR and if they do, to what extent they are committed to their social responsibilities. This research elaborates on this issue by exploring the website content and annual reports of the world top 10 universities. The findings of this research show that world leading universities are committed to their social responsibility and they provide sufficient information on most of the core areas of corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, University, social responsibility communication