Study Skills 2: Corporate Social Responsibility Literature Review

This report provides a comprehensive literature review on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It begins with an introduction to CSR, defining its role in business and society, and then delves into the concept of literature reviews, explaining their purpose and structure. The main body focuses on CSR, examining its various aspects such as its impact on company image, employee satisfaction, investor relations, and environmental sustainability initiatives. The review also explores different CSR initiatives, including philanthropic giving, and discusses the benefits of CSR for organizations, including enhanced brand image and sales. Various perspectives and definitions of CSR are explored, highlighting its importance for sustainable development and the creation of strong bonds between management and employees. The report references multiple sources to support its findings and offers insights into how companies can implement effective CSR strategies.

Study skills 2

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
1. About Literature review..........................................................................................................3
2. Literature review on the topic of “Corporate social responsibility”.......................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that advice the responsibilities to the
business towards the society. In Corporate social responsibility, the organisation contributes
towards the economical, social and environment development of to the society. Present study is
based on literature review that evaluates the sources and advice the reader to most relevant. It
also includes the literature review about the Corporate social responsibility and it helps to
achieving organisation goals.
MAIN BODY
1. About Literature review
Literature review:-
Literature review is a scholarly paper that includes current knowledge with findings,
theoretical as well as methodological contribution on a particular topic. It is a type of review
article. Literature review is a secondary source of the collecting data. It does not include new and
original experimental work in report. Most of the literature review is associated with academic
oriented literature(Hart,2018). It is found in academic review not in book review. The literature
review usually precedes the section which includes the results of the work and methodology.
Producing a literature review is a part of graduate and post graduate students work related to
their thesis, journal article and dissertation and summer training reports etc.
Literature review is a discussion about a particular subject area of published information
within a certain period. It can be a simple summary of the topic and can be a synthesis or
summary both. Summary is short explanation of the important information in the report and
synthesis is a reshuffling and reorganization of the work. Literature review provides a new
interpretation of the old material. It is also evaluated the sources and advice the reader to most
relevant. Sometimes literature review is both a summary and the explanation of the topic. There
are two types of literature review. In first, student are written themselves in their assignment
usually in their training report. In second is written as a part of introduction, preparation and
conclusion usually in thesis and hypothesis. The focus of literature review is argued on the
reports and thesis with the current information about a particular topic and determining the
written literature review(Meijer and Bolívar, 2016).
Purpose of the literature review:-

 It provides effective and relevant information about the particular topic that provides easy
understanding to the readers about the topic. It gives high quality articles and studies in
summarise form that are meaningful, relevant and valid.
 It provides an excellent beginning of the report to the researchers to any new topics. It
also ensures that researcher do not copy the content that has already been published. It is
highlighted the finding of the area of the research. It also provides clues to the researcher
for future suggestion and recommendation about the topic.
 It is identified the gap between the report and thesis to current information, contradictions
and inconsistencies in the literature(Writing a literature review.,2019).
 It provides a specific and reliable analysis of the approaches and methodologies of the
other researchers.
Content of the review:-
 Introduction: It explains the nature and importance of the work has been done in the
topic and identifies any controversies of the topic with already done researches. It also
provides the background and history of the topic. It will suggest that how the findings
leads to the researcher(Dumay and et.al.,2016).
 Body: it is divided in headings and subheadings. It summarizes the current knowledge in
the report. It includes major topics, important trends and findings. Its purpose is to make
argue that is justified by research. It explains only those topics that are related to their
project.
 Conclusion: it summaries all the evidence that is presented in the project and shows its
significant. It highlights the gap and show the difference from the previous research. It
also suggests practical applications to the research and its implication in near future.
Steps to writing a literature review:-
Find a working topic:- First, find-out the specific area of the study, interesting facts and issues
related to the field.
Review the literature:- In literature review, the researcher uses keywords. For review of the
work use two databases related to work.

Focus the topic narrowly and select paper accordingly:- In these stages the researcher focuses
on the interest area of others and decides the time limit for the research(Unit, 2015).
Read the selected articles thoroughly and evaluate them:- In these stage evaluate the
assumptions, methodology of the past research and accordingly findings and conclusion drawn.
Organize the selected papers by looking for patterns and developing subtopics:- Finds
important trends and influences theories of the research.
Develop a working thesis:- Write about the thesis that the researcher is seen and summarised
the conclusion about the finding of the thesis.
Organize their own paper based on the finding from 4 & 5:- Develop the headings and
subheadings of their own research and establish new heading of the topic.
Write the body of the paper:- develop a plan of writing the body and consider each topic of the
research is related to some logic(Hart,2018).
Look at what the researcher written: Focus on analysis, not description:- look each topic and
paragraph of the project and develop a clear understanding with logics.
2. Literature review on the topic of “Corporate social responsibility”
According to Crowther and Seifi, (2018) Corporate social responsibility is a board term
that used to define the efforts of the company towards the improvement of society. The efforts
can be include from non-profits to donate money and implement environmental friendly policies
at workplace. Corporate social responsibility is an important for companies, employees and
society. It is not mandatory practices for the organisation. It is a voluntary provision that
company perform towards the society by improving their local and global communities.
Corporate social responsibility provides long term growth to the company by meeting the ethical
standards, environmental practices. With the help of CSR business can improve the operations
cost by engaging sustainable development practices. It is a management concept where the
organisation integrates the social and environmental concerns in their business. Organisation can
take many initiatives related to corporate social responsibility. The concept of CSR is brought
the wide range of competitive advantages to the company such as increase the capital, market
share of the company, enhance the sales and profitability of the organisation.

As per Crane, Matten and Spence,(2019)Corporate social responsibility helps to improve
the companies image in front of public. Companies can improve their public image by taking
various CSR initiatives such as monetary donations, in-kind donations of the goods and services,
volunteerism and strong partnership with their local communities. The organisation can form a
relationship with their local media that help to cover the companies positive image to the public.
Employee satisfaction is one of Corporate social responsibility to the company. If the employees
are satisfied with the working conditions and workplace that helps to boost the productivity of
the organisation and employees engagement in the decision making of the organisation also
helps to reduce the employee turnover, employee grievance and employee absenteeism and that
attract valuable, engaged and hard-working employees to the organisation.
Schrempf-Stirling, Palazzo and Phillips, (2016) states thatCorporate social responsibility
is helped to retain the existing investors and attract new investors. When companies take
initiatives of CSR such as donate money to the non-profit organisation and employees
satisfaction and engagement in decision making of the company that all activities help to attract
investors. In Corporate social responsibility, the one of the main initiative is an environmental
sustainability initiative. In this initiative the business focuses on mainly on two areas: reducing
green house gases and limiting pollution. These both are the major factors that grows
environmental issues. The business can take steps to reducing air, water and land pollution. For
example, Cisco system company takes initiatives to reduce environmental pollutions such as the
company reduces their carbon footprint by installing the photovoltaic systems that allows
employees to work from good environment.
As per Wang and et.al.,(2016)CSR is a self regulation model for the business that helps to
become social to the company and attract public, stakeholders and suppliers to the company.
Corporate social responsibility provides positive impacts of external environment to the
company because when the CSR initiatives taken by the company that will help to political,
economical and social environment. Corporate social responsibility provides various benefits to
the organisation such as connect more investors, suppliers, employees and customers etc.,
reduces operating cost and enhance profitability and sales of the organisation.
According to Yakovleva, (2017)Corporate social responsibility have many forms that is
depended on industry and company. With the help of Corporate social responsibility programs,

organisation can provide benefits to the society with boosting their brand image. CSR is for the
local communities and society but also equally beneficial for the organisation. Corporate social
responsibility help to create strong bond between the management and employees. In order to
companies Corporate social responsibility their first need have to responsible for their
employees. Those companies who adopt CSR programs that grow their business operations when
the benefits of the CSR is taken back to the society. If the company want to become more
successful than the have to more responsible about the Corporate social responsibilities.
As per Saeidi and et.al.,(2015) The standards of CSR is published by international
organisation for standardization. It is a voluntary standard for companies that helps company to
implement the Corporate social responsibility initiatives. The ISO provides the guild-lines to the
company because the nature of CSR is more qualitative rather than quantitative and the standards
of the CSR can not be certified by ISO. These standards only helps to the company for deciding
the CSR principles. The aim of ISO is all the organisation are free for their activities, location
and size in their CSR activities.The company can achieve success by giving efforts in their CSR
activities. For example, Unilever corporation in food and beverage sector. They have
comprehensive CSR strategy. The company have ranked in food industry leader. The major
initiatives taken by Unilever is the sustainable tea programme. Unilever aims the rainforest
alliance certified farms provides the source of the lipton tea and PG tips tea bags. Their products
are social, environmental and economical sustainable.
Belal, (2016) states Corporate social responsibility is a type of self business regulation. It
is described as internal business policy and corporate strategic. It is considered as corporate
social regulation for voluntary decisions by the organisation. Corporate social responsibility
generally understands as private policies of the organisation that is related to the business model
in achieving the goals. Corporate social responsibility is a titled that add in organisation's
mission/vision and serve the guidelines to the company for presenting themselves to the
customers. It is a movement of the encouraging organisation from the impact of the society to the
company including the investors, suppliers and stakeholders of the company. Corporate social
responsibility is a concept of many practices and definitions such as a way of implementing the
social and economical initiatives towards society. Corporate social responsibility addresses
various initiatives related to human rights, health and safety, working conditions, corporate

governance and contribution to sustainable development of the society and many more. The main
purpose of the CSR is to drive change towards the sustainable development of the society.
Crowther and Seifi, (2018) states The one of major initiative that organisation can include
in their CSR initiatives such as direct philanthropic giving. It includes donate money, resources
and time to charities. These donations can help from various causes such as national disaster
relief, education programs in under-develop countries, clean water etc. For example, Microsoft
co-founder Bills Gates donates $1.5 billion in Bill and Melinda gates foundation. There are
various benefits of the Corporate social responsibilities. CSR helps in developing positive
business reputation and recognize the better brand image. It also helps to enhance the sales of the
organisations as well as customer loyalty. Corporate social responsibility initiative provides
better financial position and ability to retain staff in the company. CSR boosts the growth of the
organisation as well as easily provide capital to the company.
CONCLUSION
From the above study it has been summarised that Corporate social responsibility is play
an important role in order to achieve success to the organisation. It is defined the definition of the
literature review, their purposes, methods and stages that helps to understand the importance of
the literature review in the projects and studies. Furthermore, it has been explained the literature
review about the Corporate social responsibility and also with the help of Corporate social
responsibility business can achieve the success.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Belal, A.R., 2016. Corporate social responsibility reporting in developing countries: The case of
Bangladesh. Routledge.
Crane, A., Matten, D. and Spence, L. eds., 2019. Corporate social responsibility: Readings and
cases in a global context. Routledge.
Crowther, D. and Seifi, S. eds., 2018. Redefining Corporate Social Responsibility. Emerald
Group Publishing.
Dumay and et.al.,2016, September. Integrated reporting: a structured literature review.
In Accounting Forum (Vol. 40, No. 3, pp. 166-185). Taylor & Francis.
Hart, C., 2018. Doing a literature review: Releasing the research imagination. Sage.
Machi, L.A. and McEvoy, B.T., 2016. The literature review: Six steps to success. Corwin Press.
Meijer, A. and Bolívar, M.P.R., 2016. Governing the smart city: a review of the literature on
smart urban governance. International Review of Administrative Sciences.82(2).pp.392-
408.
Saeidi and et.al.,2015. How does corporate social responsibility contribute to firm financial
performance? The mediating role of competitive advantage, reputation, and customer
satisfaction. Journal of business research.68(2). pp.341-350.
Schrempf-Stirling, J., Palazzo, G. and Phillips, R.A., 2016. Historic corporate social
responsibility. Academy of Management Review.41(4). pp.700-719.
Unit, B., 2015. Corporate social responsibility.
Wang and et.al., 2016. Corporate social responsibility: An overview and new research directions:
Thematic issue on corporate social responsibility.
Yakovleva, N., 2017. Corporate social responsibility in the mining industries. Routledge.
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