Dr. D. Mukhopadhyay
As it is evident from the contemporary research on CSR practices, in India CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives are primarily people and society focused besides being environment focused. The CSR practitioners are found to be much more concerned about framing CSR policies to focus on welfare of the society in general and health, safety awareness, community building and providing general basic education to the members of the society. Moreover, it deals with transparent corporate governance, transparent dealing with creditors, healthy industrial relations etc. As far as adoption of CSR guidelines are concerned, they try to comply with the CSR related provisions within the meaning of the Companies Act, 2013 and in addition to that the best practices of the concerned industry. The core CSR initiatives remained confined within the scope of waste recycling, solid waste treatment and use of renewable resources. At the same time, initiatives with respect of energy saving, controlling water pollution, protecting soil depletion etc are found to be back seated.
The Indian corporate sector faces problems relating to employment of child labour, rampant industrial disputes with the employees, payment of minimum wages, employees health insurance relating problems, etc. on the other hand, employee- community issues, employee retirement benefits, special rights of women employees, employees compensation for meeting accidents during employment are not given due importance and weight by the corporate India. As far as CSR practices with reference to donation for school/college buildings constructions, donation for setting in hospitals, providing mid-day meals in the schools, providing books and learning aids to the students belonging to the marginalized group of people in the society, creation of general awareness about cleanliness and sanitation among the common people, setting up local libraries are concerned, they are getting gradually more importance than providing old age pension, donation for the cause of housing for the marginalized community etc by the CSR practitioners. In India, CSR initiatives are adopted mostly in order to comply with the regulatory formalities, building brand of the products and services, to promote corporate image in the society and to emerge as a model corporate citizen, gaining confidence and support of the society etc. As far as the limiting factors with reference to CSR practices are concerned, the corporate sector is found to be constrained to have good CSR practices due to non availability of people having necessary skill , experience , knowledge and technical knowhow. Moreover, sometimes, CSR practices appear to be cost prone and non availability of adequate guidance act as limiting factors for having reasonable degree of CSR practices. As far as CSR Delivery mechanism is concerned, it is carried out with the involvement of the middle level management and hiring the CSR consultants and top management is mostly involved in the formulating CSR policies and the same is passed on to the middle level management for execution with the help of hired CSR consultants and experts since the in-house capability of the companies are yet to be developed to the extent it is necessary.
It is also seen that the factors like the provisions of the companies Act, 2013, environmental issues, human rights issues, industrial relations and HR policies etc are found to be more vulnerable to the performance of the companies. As far as benchmarking of CSR practices of corporate India is concerned against the global CSR practices, they give due importance to transparency in corporate governance, corporate mission, vision and corporate objectives, transparency in dealing with Government and regulatory authorities, national chambers of commerce and dealing with international trade organizations. However, grievance control mechanism , transparency in employees welfare policy etc are found not in much practice. It is also feeling of the majority of the Indian companies that the Companies Act, 2013 has imposed the mandatory CSR provision on them and CSR should be a voluntary initiative and not legally binding or imposable on the companies. by legal enforcement. Moreover, it is evident from the findings of the contemporary research on CSR practices that developing country like India is seen to be struggling to meet the economic , legal and philanthropic needs of the society. Ethical issues are also gaining importance though not at accelerating rate. It may be mentioned that India is a developing country and labour intensive economy and she is lagging far behind the economically advanced countries in the domain of CSR practices. From the overall analysis, it may be an imperative to provide a sacred initiative to offer a definition of CSR that suits Indian current practice and accordingly, CSR may be defined as the commitment of the corporate India to adopt policies and pursue those activities that have a positive impact on the welfare of the people of India and on her environment.
Finally, Indian corporate sector should not engage totally on profit making activities only but they should practice on those CSR activities which make them economically sustainable and the Three P Model i.e. People, planet and profit is the perhaps the best. In other words, CSR practice should concentrate on protecting the interest of people in first instance , planet i.e. environment in the second instance and finally profit for perpetual existence and long term sustainability of the business. CSR derives a lot of benefits to the corporate India and they include employee retention, improving image of the firms, enhancing employee-commitment and capability.
For instance, the employee shall feel the sense of belongingness to the firms if they are provided with congenial working atmosphere and treated with dignity. It is found by the researchers that employee retention is high in the socially responsible Indian firms as compared to firms having least degree of CSR practices. Reasons for the same is very plain and simple as it plays important role in providing employee satisfaction and only happy employees shall feel to have long term association with the companies. CSR motivates the employees to work more efficiently because they remain committed to contribute most because of the congenial working environment provided by the employer-companies.
The purpose of this write up is to account for global and Indian CSR perspectives and practices. The researchers established that developed countries that include USA, UK, Germany, France, Canada, Japan do have robust mechanism for socially efficient and effective CSR initiatives and they do it on the moral and ethical compulsion and law of the land do have a secondary role to assess the degree of CSR culture in those countries.
Those countries consider CSR practice as the unavoidable obligation and they do hardly wait for any legal pronouncement for undertaking any CSR or CSR related activities in their corporate agenda. On the contrary, countries like India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Africa and Pakistan are generally found to be CSR initiative averse and they feel why they should adopt CSR initiatives since law of the land is not asking them to adopt any CSR activities or CSR initiatives. CSR initiatives in the countries like China, Malaysia , South Korea are also on encouraging stage and the same is found to be in practice on voluntary basis and in significant ways. It is to see that ownership of resources lies with society and therefore’ live and let live ‘ should be the best CSR policy which can sustain and make the society sustainable.
(The author is Professor of Management, School of Business and Dean-Faculty of Management, Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra, J&K)
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel