Corporate Social Responsibility and Islamic CSR in UAE Property Companies

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CSR and ICSR
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Executive Summary
The report aims at analyzing the importance of giving back to the community for actively
engaging in activities with them. It is aimed at giving back to the community especially in the
UAE what the government cannot fully concentrate in giving. We look at three companies that
are based in Dubai, United Arab emirates. These companies are Emaar properties, Dubai
properties and Damac properties. They aim at giving back to the community since they are large
corporates worth billions and have billion worth of dollars in revenues each year. The companies
grow a rapport with the intended community’s therefore making them a darling in the eyes of the
general public. The report aims at promoting the welfare and wellbeing of the people. This can
only be done by taking advantage of the new channels of communication with stakeholders and
conducting a thorough analysis of the company's value chain. This will help them both to
minimize risks and to detect business opportunities through active listening to the expectations
and demands of the stakeholders. Consumers have felt powerless in the face of big business.
They did not have the power to face their activities, nor did they have the capacity to ensure that
their protests had sufficient echo. But that is changing with social networks and new
communication channels between companies and their interest groups. It is always appreciated
that such initiatives such as health programs, school and education mentorship programs and
more which aims at improving the communities are given by the companies.

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Introduction
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been an area of interest in many organizations
and the public at large. CSR mitigates the impact of their activities. The following companies
impact the society in a big way in corporate social responsibility in the UAE. Emaar, Damac and
Dubai properties are all property companies operating in the UAE.
Background of the companies
Emaar
It is a real estate development company that is based in the United Arab Emirates. Its net
worth as at May 2017 was $ 14.6 billion dollars and is a public stock company listed in the
Dubai Financial Market. It is a property management company operating internationally with
more than six business segments and 60 active companies(Corporate Social Responsibility,
Corporate Restructuring and Firm's Performance, 2010). It has a market presence in 36 markets
all across the globe especially in the Middle East, North Africa, North America and some parts
of Europe and Asia. It is specifically known for large projects it undertakes and the most
significant is the Burj Khalifa which is the tallest building in the world.
Damac
Founded in the year 2002, Damac properties is part of Damac group of companies that
were established in the 1992 by Hussain Sajwani who is the chairman, founder and owner.
Among the first that the company that is based in the Middle East has done was to list in the
London Stock Exchange. It was the first company from the Middle East to list in LSE through
the popular and most acclaimed global depository receipts program(Koutra, 2013). The IPO

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raised $ 379 million which was exceptionally good for the company’s growth agenda. It listed
itself in the LSE as DFM in ordinary shares and began trading in Dubai in January 2015. It has
employed more than 2000 people and its revenue in 2016 was close to $ 1.947 billion.
Dubai Properties
It is a member of Dubai Holdings group. It is a property management company that is
based in United Arab Emirates and was founded in 2004. Its Chief Executive is Abdulla Bin
Lahej and has several subsidiaries like Salwan LLC and salwan property management LLc. It
has handled quite a number of high profile properties which include Bay avenues, vision tower,
bay squire and Jumeirah Beach residence.
All these companies have one thing in common, they all are actively engaged in
community social responsibility(Ravi Raman and Lipschutz, 2010). The importance of corporate
social responsibility are Before, any conflict could be maintained within certain geographical
limits, which allowed to exercise certain "damage control", now that possibility no longer exists
because the Internet makes the information available and accessible to all people, no matter in
Where are they? Companies are more exposed than ever to the reactions and opinions of interest
groups, and they have more means than ever to be able to exert pressure and "impose" their
demands on companies. Consumers have felt powerless in the face of big business. They did not
have the power to face their activities, nor did they have the capacity to ensure that their protests
had sufficient echo. But that is changing with social networks and new communication channels
between companies and their interest groups.

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The new situation is good for companies and interest groups. It is good for these because the
power of will move from large corporations to interest groups, balancing a balance that until now
has been too inclined towards the interests of companies, without taking into account the
interests of the other affected parties(Gond and Moon, 2012). Likewise, it is beneficial for
companies because they will be forced to pay more attention to the demands and expectations of
stakeholders, so that companies will have a more accurate analysis of their environment and will
discover new business opportunities that had gone unnoticed before. Let's see the example of
three companies that have had to change their activities because the impacts produced have been
reported by the interest groups.
Literature review
CSR and Islamic CSR
Corporate social responsibility is a company giving back to the community due to their
activities they are engaged in. on the other hand Islamic corporate social responsibility requires
both substance and form in sharia compliancy. While it is a voluntary act in many financial
institutions it is actually a religious requirement in sharia laws to give. This is because in Islamic
religion, institutions like the property institutions being under analysis are considered to be part
of the wider environment. As part of the religious economic ethic paradigm, Islamic institutions
are expected to operate in objectivity and framework given in sharia laws. It is therefore
imperative for Islamic institutions to contribute to the larger environment(Hopkins, 2012). For
Emaar, Damac and Dubai properties, it is fundamental that they contribute towards the
betterment of the environment in which they co-exist. All stakeholders should be involved
inorder to remove all the barriers while giving to the community. This ensures that the

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companies and the community both grow vertically and horizontally. Empirical studies however
show that Islamic institutions are not fulfilling their corporate social responsibility. Damac
Damac properties, from the UAE group Damac, is committed to improving the use of
substances from all its products after campaign on social media. This has been possible thanks to
the signatures and the support of thousands of people through social media, something that
would have been much more difficult a few years ago.
Campaign launched through change.org. This is a clear example of how consumers can channel
their protests, not through large corporates like Emaar, but through individual requests driven
through social media such as Facebook or Twitter.
This situation of "democracy of the interest groups" will not change and will continue to tip the
balance towards the stakeholders. What can companies do? Basically they only have one
alternative: Integrate the demands of the stakeholders in their strategies, anticipating these
demands and adopting a more proactive position(Zhao, n.d.).
Research question
In this research the question is what is the difference between western CSR and Islamic CSR and
their impact to the community.
An interest group is anyone who is directly or indirectly affected by the activities of a company.
Currently in UAE there is an increased interest and development of reporting concepts, which
includes both financial reporting, and on environmental and social components of activities. The