Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility in Indian

Organizations

N. Santosh Ranganath *
Dr. T. Kama Raju **

CSR is a concept that frequently overlaps with similar approaches such as corporate
sustainability, corporate sustainable development, corporate responsibility, and corporate
citizenship. While CSR does not have a universal definition, many see it as the private sector's
way of integrating the economic, social, and environmental imperatives of their activities. As
such, CSR closely resembles the business pursuit of sustainable development and the triple
bottom line. In addition to integration into corporate structures and processes, CSR also
frequently involves creating innovative and proactive solutions to societal and environmental
challenges, as well as collaborating with both internal and external stakeholders to improve CSR
performance. CSR is generally accepted as applying to firms wherever they operate in the
domestic and global economy.

In India as in the rest of the world there is a growing realization that business cannot
succeed in a society which fails. An ideal CSR has both ethical and philosophical dimensions,
particularly in India where there exists a wide gap between sections of people in terms of income
and standards as well as socio-economic status. Financial crisis are times that are likely to be
characterized by uncertain business environment. Both organizations and each party in the
society try to avoid the effect of crisis by remedial actions; such as cutting costs by laying off
workers, postponing investments, reducing budgets for the following year in a contraction
manner, consuming less.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
* N. Santosh Ranganath, Faculty Member, Dept. of Commerce & Management Studies,
Dr.B.R.Ambedkar University, Srikakulam.
** Dr. T. Kama Raju, Associate Professor & Head, Dept. of Commerce & Management Studies,
Dr.B.R.Ambedkar University, Srikakulam.

In order to cope with the financial and economic downturn, organizations need to focus
on providing society’s needs; therefore, transparent CSR projects could provide the social
support needed by organizations and society to overcome the down turn. The financial crisis has
raised the question of whether supporting CSR initiatives is a good issue in financially troubled
times. If organizations are purely profit maximizing units, it would be expected that they would
not engage in CSR projects in times of financial crisis, however, CSR is more demanded in times
of financial crisis.