The construct of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has in recent decades attracted
the imagination and interest of a range of stakeholders including the private sector,
civil society, public sector organizations, researchers and the general public. However,
as observed by Caroll (1981), the CSR concept is not new having been adopted by
diverse companies in the developed world since the 1940s. It has further been observed
that CSR has proved a “slippery term” as it is understood and interpreted differently by
many people (Holcomb et al., 2010). Given this conceptual fuzziness, for the purposes of
this study, the term CSR is used to mean voluntary actions by corporations that are
aimed at making them good corporate citizens (McWilliams and Siegel, 2000).
Interpreted broadly this way, CSR initiatives define efforts by a corporation that are
not solely driven by the profit-motive rather the company seeks proactively to find
“solutions to society’s many problems and to engage in activities aimed at improving