Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility: A Literature Review

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Running Head: ASSESSMENT 2
ASSESSMENT 2
Name of the Student
Name of the Instructor
Course Code
Date
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ASSESSMENT 2
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
1. WHAT IS A LITERATURE REVIEW AND WHAT DOES IT ACHIEVE?......3
2. WRITE A LITERATURE REVIEW ON THE TOPIC “CORPORATE SOCIAL
RESPONSIBILITY”........................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
Reference.......................................................................................................................................10
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INTRODUCTION
In every research work, or a research report, a great deal of compiling of information is required
other than just the research methodology or the actual research. These work compilations work
in the periphery of the actual research work and provide a lucid and compact insight about the
Research Topic. Literature Review thus gives an overall idea of any particular subject and also
helps understanding what other researchers had researched and what the findings are. One of the
most important parts of A Research Paper is The Literature Review.
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1. WHAT IS A LITERATURE REVIEW AND WHAT DOES IT ACHIEVE?
One among the various components of a Research Topic is the Literature Review, which is an
integral part of any Research Compilation. Without the availability of the Literature Review, the
research remains largely unsatisfactory and incomplete. A literature review is a document which
is of the review type. Corresponding to the Topic at hand, the Literature Review is based on
providing an in depth analysis of the knowledge of the research topic available in the public
domain, in the recent times (Vagia and Transeth and Fjerdingen, 2016). It collects information
on any works that have been carried out on the given topic previously, and summarizes them
together in a scholarly review to attach enough importance to the subject at hand (Hart, 2018).
However, Literature Reviews are secondary sources of information, and do not directly report
neither research nor debrief Research Results. Rather it provides a brief relevance of the topic in
popular public literature and attempts to summarize substantive findings. A literature review
usually provides the proper context for a reader who is reading into the research work.
The main types of literature reviews are exploratory, evaluative, systematic and instrumental. All
of these types have but one common aspect, that is any literature review mostly tries to identify
and synthesize quality evidence on the research topic, and attempts to put it forth in plain
language to a reader, so that a reader understands the importance of the topic that is being
worked upon (Baker, 2016).
The importance of the literature review lies in the underlying fact that the new ideas that are to
be presented need a solid foundation of knowledge and facts on which it can work upon. A
strong foundation supports a new and relevant idea with more strength than initially it can muster
on. A proper assessment of the relevant literatures (previous and current) is very important in this
regard. Critically reviewing ideas and theories about a particular topic is what builds a proper
Literature Review (Moloo and Musselman, 2019).
A literature review contains the ideas and opinions of experts on the relevant topic, but merely
stating their ideas don’t suffice. Sufficient arguments must be provided in favor or against the
motion, in the expansion of the review, such that it provides food for thought for the reader and
the analytical minds. Significant credits are offered to the previous researchers on their works on
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the topic; however, the current contribution to the topic that will give it a whole new horizon is
to be significantly highlighted.
Thus as we see The Literature Review inculcates ideas at the epicenter of the literature, yet it
carries embodiments of earlier works and merges the two to form a logical flow of ideas that
provide a clear lucid understanding to the target audience.
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2. WRITE A LITERATURE REVIEW ON THE TOPIC “CORPORATE SOCIAL
RESPONSIBILITY”.
Before embarking to write a review material on Corporate Social Responsibility, We need to
look deeply into what Corporate Social Responsibility refers to.
Corporate Social Responsibility is a type of self regulation policy applied to international private
business organizations. During its initial inception, Corporate Social Responsibility was referred
to as corporate ethics strategy. Corporate Social Responsibility today has spread far and wide
through the industry, becoming an undertaking initiative supported by numerous leading
corporate firms. Initially though, it remained a self regulatory scheme for the corporate sector,
but since then, with the passing of time, and with aggravation of global problems , these have
become mandates that are to be adhered by at not only trans-national levels but also regional and
national ones (Frynas and Yamahaki, 2019).
Also known as Corporate citizenship, a business model that has incorporated the corporate social
responsibility into its folds hold the firm and the business accountable to the society, its people
and the numerous stakeholders that are involved with the business. Thus put more simply,
Corporate Social Responsibility is a voluntary mandated effort on part of the corporate society to
not just be firms that are interested in carrying out trade and farming out revenue, but also which
understands the responsibilities that one has towards the society, and being the force of
reckoning that the corporate sector is courtesy of financial and influential power, helps provide
positive impact in the society, by working on different agendas that plague the well being of the
society. So instead of negative contributions, CSR ensures that every business firm assumes
responsibilities to carry on some good deed in the society. The impacts that can be worked upon
by CSR can be in financial developments, social and cultural developments, Environmental
problems, educational issues and so on (Scherer et al., 2016).
In this aspect of the CSR, it must be understood that, the more successful a company is, the more
business growth it has seen, the more responsibility falls upon their shoulders to give back
something to the society as a whole. Thus primarily CSR is s strategy that is more effectively
worked upon by the bigger firms, although the smaller firms can always do their own bits, but
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when it comes to major influences in any change in the society, it is always upon the major
corporate to work on the forefront.
Since the times of industrial revolution, the thought that “Business and Society are interwoven in
their arenas of functioning” have been in vogue.
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (1999) defined corporate social
responsibility as: “The ethical Behavior of an organization towards society that is the
management acting responsibility in its relationship with other stakeholders who have
legitimate interests in the business.” (Mariia, 2016)
Thus we need to look at the idea of stakeholders more closely in this aspect. Stakeholders are
those individuals or group of individuals that have their interests in common with the business
organization. Thus a person who buys the shares of the company, the individuals or group of
individuals who supply materials to the company, the individuals who avail their products and
anyone else who is involved in any periphery with the company forms a stakeholder in the
interests of the firm and the firm in return has a social responsibility towards them.
There have been quite a few impressive researches in this field over the last decade. Perhaps the
most impressive among them all was the rigorous and proponent study on Corporate Social
Responsibility. It won the Moskowitz Prize in October 2004, undertaken by ORLITZKY. Their
research work was compiled by studies based on a time span of 30 years, during which they
monitored Corporate Social Responsibility behaviors in the World, and attempted to chart out a
relation between CSR and the financial performance of business organizations. The findings of
their research showed that there existed a statistically significant positive association between a
firm’s corporate social commitments and financial performance. The evidences ranged from and
between strong and modestly positive. This substantiates the claim that often by using corporate
social responsibilities a company remodels its marketing process and gains financial
empowerment through the process. It has been observed via research surveys that customers are
more inclined to avail the products and services of firms active in CSR because they consider
them to be more socially sensitive and responsible. Also it has been observed that the customers
and clients see themselves becoming a part of the cause of CSR when they carry out business
with such firms.
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The paper on “The reputation of Corporate Social Responsibility in Australia” published in the
Australian Marketing Journal in 2009 by Truscott, Bartlett and Trowniak approached CSR in
form of case study methodology. They approached several seasoned Corporate Professionals in
Australia, to find out what the essence of CSR truly is in the ever changing dynamics of the
corporate world. The corporate personnel shared their views about CSR in various facets such as
ethical, legal and economics. The paper argued that CSR was becoming increasingly significant
in business models and those Contradictions and Rifts usually establish the concepts or CSR.
They also said CSR is viewed in the industry nowadays as Corporate Reputation, i.e. the more
socially responsible a corporate business firm is, the greater is its acceptance in the market
echelons (Devin and Richards, 2016).
There have been other works in vogue, which established the approaches and impacts of CSR in
the different sectors of corporate world. The work by Hartman in 2011, titled “Corporate social
Responsibility in the food sector “emphasized the approach and importance attached to CSR in
the European Food Sectors. The work was published in the European review of Agriculture
Economics Journal. The paper depicted how the CSR activities were chiefly discharged by the
companies that had high brand value. It was evident from the paper that the small and medium
scale food dispensers weren't satisfactory enough in their Approach towards CSR (El Baz et
al.2016). Just like other basic Industries, customers in this case too were more drawn towards
firms that had a sensitive and friendly approach towards CSR, as they believed with better
Values regarding society; bigger brands were more likely to prove better quality in exchange for
their prices.
There was also the work published by Shah and Bhaskar in 2010, which was notable because it
attempted to look into how CSR works when a public sector undertaking is involved. The work
was based on the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited in India. The findings showed the
elaborate relations between a public undertaking and the society. The organization avails for
materials and services from within the society and then returned the values to the society in form
of services to the public. Thus their work established the fact that a government organization
necessarily models its policies based on CSR and Bharat Petroleum Corporation has taken up a
lot of work to carry out beneficiary activities be it on environmental aspects or socio economic
ones (Gautam, 2018).
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Agunis, Glovas in 2012 published a paper titled as 39 Paper entitled “what we know and don’t
know about corporate social responsibility: A review and research agenda” that provided an in
depth study about the frameworks that build CSR. Their study revolved around how the internal
and external stakeholders were impacted. They also attempted to enhance the knowledge
regarding how the CSR works on different levels of business and how there lies a growing need
to understand the policies of CSR before endeavoring to get outcomes of CSR (Glavas, 2016).
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Conclusion
Thus upon carefully reading this report a clear idea of CSR can be obtained by going through the
literature review that is been presented. A literature review thus has helped a lot in providing all
the background information that was required for understanding the topic. A nicely written
literature review also states that one has good hold on the subject and can present his or her idea
in front of the media.
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Reference
 Hart, C., 2018. Doing a literature review: Releasing the research imagination. Sage.
 Vagia, M., Transeth, A.A. and Fjerdingen, S.A., 2016. A literature review on the levels of
automation during the years. What are the different taxonomies that have been
proposed?. Applied ergonomics, 53, pp.190-202.
 Baker, J.D., 2016. The purpose, process, and methods of writing a literature
review. AORN journal, 103(3), pp.265-269.
 Moloo, H. and Musselman, R., 2019. Building Decision Analysis Tools Through
Systematic Review of the Literature: The Importance of Study Quality.
 Frynas, J.G. and Yamahaki, C., 2019. Corporate Social Responsibility: An Outline of
Key Concepts, Trends, and Theories. In Practising CSR in the Middle East (pp. 11-37).
Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
 Scherer, A.G., Rasche, A., Palazzo, G. and Spicer, A., 2016. Managing for political
corporate social responsibility: New challenges and directions for PCSR 2.0. Journal of
Management Studies, 53(3), pp.273-298.
 Mariia, M., 2016. The development of corporate social performance portfolio for
Imperial Porcelain Factory on the basis of the best international practices..
 Devin, B. and Richards, C., 2016. Food waste, power, and corporate social responsibility
in the Australian food supply chain. Journal of Business Ethics, pp.1-12.
 El Baz, J., Laguir, I., Marais, M. and Staglianò, R., 2016. Influence of national
institutions on the corporate social responsibility practices of small-and medium-sized
enterprises in the food-processing industry: Differences between France and
Morocco. Journal of Business Ethics, 134(1), pp.117-133.
 Gautam, P., 2018. A Study Of Corporate Social Responsibility Structure And Practices In
Bpo Industry In India.
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 Glavas, A., 2016. Corporate social responsibility and organizational psychology: An
integrative review. Frontiers in psychology, 7, p.144.
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