Corporate social responsibility, the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and financial performance, with implications for human resource development

IF 2.3 Q3 MANAGEMENT
Ekta Sharma, Gary N. McLean
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Purpose

India is one of the fastest developing economies, but it faces numerous socioeconomic problems, such as hunger, poverty, under- and unemployment, gender inequity and illiteracy. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) funding at the corporate level could tackle these socioeconomic problems, providing support to the nation’s overall development. Mandated CSR expenditures, in alignment with the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations, would support the nation’s contributions to building a sustainable future. Several questions, however, remain. Thus, this study aims to explore relationships between a company’s gross and net profits and its expenditures for CSR; and mapped the specific CSR activities used to address each of the 17 UN SDGs and then draw implications for human resource development (HRD).

Design/methodology/approach

The data were gathered from published annual reports (2019–23) of 60 Fortune 500 Indian companies. A zero-order correlation was used to find the relationship between CSR expenditure and gross, as well as net, profits. Furthermore, the CSR activities of the sample were mapped with the UN SDGs.

Findings

There was a positive, moderate to strong correlation between CSR expenditures and gross profit (r = 0.82, p < 0.01), but for net profit, the correlation was strong (r = 0.85, p < 0.01). All CSR activities mapped to at least one of the SDGs.

Originality/value

The alignment of CSR activities and SDGs based on Fortune 500 Indian companies has not yet been explored. Also, no study to date discusses the gaps in the CSR expenditures for specific UN SDGs.

企业社会责任、联合国可持续发展目标和财务业绩,以及对人力资源开发的影响
目的印度是发展最快的经济体之一,但也面临着许多社会经济问题,如饥饿、贫困、就业不足和失业、性别不平等和文盲。公司层面的企业社会责任(CSR)资金可以解决这些社会经济问题,为国家的整体发展提供支持。与实现联合国可持续发展目标(SDGs)相一致的企业社会责任法定支出将支持国家为建设可持续未来做出贡献。然而,仍然存在一些问题。因此,本研究旨在探讨公司的毛利润和净利润与其企业社会责任支出之间的关系;并绘制用于实现联合国 17 个可持续发展目标中每一个目标的具体企业社会责任活动图,然后得出对人力资源开发(HRD)的影响。采用零阶相关法来发现企业社会责任支出与毛利润以及净利润之间的关系。此外,还将样本的企业社会责任活动与联合国可持续发展目标进行了映射。研究结果企业社会责任支出与毛利润之间存在中强正相关关系(r = 0.82,p < 0.01),而净利润与毛利润之间存在强相关关系(r = 0.85,p < 0.01)。所有企业社会责任活动都与至少一项可持续发展目标相匹配。原创性/价值基于《财富》印度 500 强企业的企业社会责任活动与可持续发展目标的一致性尚未得到探讨。此外,迄今为止还没有一项研究讨论了企业社会责任支出与特定联合国可持续发展目标之间的差距。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
5.10
自引率
13.60%
发文量
53
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