Title: Employing multi-criteria decision making in examining CSR initiatives

Authors: Kavitha Shanmugam; P. Lakshmi; S. Visalakshmi

Addresses: Department of Management Studies, JJ College of Engineering and Technology, Trichy – 620 009, Tamilnadu, India ' Department of Management Studies, National Institute of Technology, Trichy 620015, Tamilnadu, India ' Department of Management Studies, National Institute of Technology, Trichy 620015, Tamilnadu, India

Abstract: The study provides a framework of the CSR initiatives through a survey of 50 companies in automobile, cement, chemical, pharmaceutical and textile industries in the Indian manufacturing sector. The stakeholders are identified as customers, employees, environment and community. Structural equation model (SEM) is used to test the hypothesised model and compare the overall CSR activities. The findings of second order SEM reveal the emergence of environment CSR as corporate focus. A variety of fit indices confirmed the overall model fit and all the paths in the model were statistically significant. In addition, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) which is a multi-criteria decision making technique is used to rank each decision alternative of the proposed evaluation model. The results of AHP indicate that the Indian automobile industry leads in CSR initiatives. The scores of the constructs in the model could be used by the companies to ascertain the CSR initiatives taken by them and the relative importance given to various stakeholders in arriving at the overall CSR. From such an understanding, industries could adjust the CSR activities and be more socially responsible.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility; CSR; structural equation modelling; SEM; analytical hierarchy process; AHP; environment; customers; community; employees; multicriteria decision making; MCDM; India; manufacturing industry.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIR.2015.065967

International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, 2015 Vol.9 No.1, pp.115 - 132

Received: 31 Aug 2013
Accepted: 28 Sep 2013
Published online: 15 Apr 2015 *

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