Bring Back the Core Concepts of CSR—Indian Context

Abstract

The term CSR is not new in literature, but it gained momentum from 1997 exponentially. This development may be attributed to various international initiatives like the Global Reporting Initiative and UN Global Compact. Indian industries also have taken CSR activities since the beginning. Traditionally, CSR in India is philanthropic-oriented, whereas the core concept of CSR is reducing the effect of the adverse impact of business processes on society and increase in value-added effect the purpose of the organisation. This study aims to confirm the hypothesis: industries are neglecting the core CSR issues and doing more on philanthropic activities, which is important but not a core component of CSR. As a result, the adverse impact of the business processes is not addressed adequately by the CSR activities. In India, philanthropy-oriented CSR got a fillip ever since Government of India (GOI) introduced the Companies Act 2013. Our study on CSR spending and the CSR projects of top 30 companies from the Economic times top 500 industries indicates that all are working compliance-oriented. In support of our hypothesis, we argue based on the findings from the extant literature and also by analysing various reports. We argue that the corporate sectors are not giving enough attention to the minimum regulatory-level environmental requirement; some instances are given.