LITERATURE REVIEW

A literature review is primarily an account of what has been published on a topic by researchers.
As a piece of writing, a literature review must be defined by a guiding concept. It is not only a
sole descriptive list of information available but it also provides researchers with the ability to
apply vital principles of analysis to identify unbiased and valid studies (Hart, 1998).
The rational for choosing this subject matter was primarily to evaluate the understanding of how
CSR has had a major influence on the economies of the developing nations. IMF (2006) holds
developing countries to be most lucrative growth market for a business due to their rapid
expanding economies.
The Term CSR has become an important aspect for businesses around the world. Many
organizations have integrated CSR in to their strategic management plans (Walters, 2009, p. 81)
which shows that how important it has become to address the issue of CSR. According to Carroll
(1979), corporate social responsibility includes the economic, legal and ethical anticipation a
society holds towards an organization.
According to Visser (2008) most research on CSR in developing countries has either
comprehensively targeted all developing countries (e.g. Frynas, 2006) or aimed at a state level
rather than a regional level. Despite the focus on countries in the literature, only about a fifth of
all developing countries have had any CSR journal articles published. From these articles the
most common evaluated and written about are from China, India, Pakistan, South Africa,
Malaysia and Thailand. Although investigation at a regional level (Africa, Asia and Latin
America) is becoming of a practice, papers remain reasonably inadequate.
A prominent exception is Baskins (2006) research on the reported corporate social
responsibility behavior of 127 leading companies from 21 emerging markets across Asia, Africa,
Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe. The concluding remarks indicated that reported
corporate responsibility (especially in South Africa, Brazil, India and some parts of Eastern
Europe) was more developed than generally thought, frequently exceeding standards in some
high incomes countries/ regions. Despite the limitations of using reporting as an indicator of
CSR performance and the danger of representing regions by just few countries i.e. only 2 out of
53 countries from African region were included in the sample, Baskins (2006) study does
provide some insight into the level of CSR activity undertaken by developing countries. For
better understanding on the level of CSR undertaken by different regions, it is useful to discuss
each region i.e. Asia, Africa and Latin America briefly (Visser, 2008).