AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF SRI LANKAN MANAGEMENT UNDERGRADUATES’ OPENIONS OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Abstract

On the scenario of incessant dialogue of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), undergraduates as prospective managers play a decisive role in practicing CSR in an organizational context. Their opinions in relation to the concept of CSR reveal a way of driving a business in competitive environment in the future. As an issue, the researchers probed what opinions by undergraduates have as prospective managers on the CSR. The data were collected from a randomly selected sample of 362 internal and 338 external undergraduates who are in the management field, by administrating a structured questionnaire, which consisted of 30 questions relating to the CSR, and 30 questions relating to responsiveness. The external validity of question statements was placed in the range of 0.731 to 0.899. Descriptive statistics were used to scrutinize the survey data. Findings of the survey revealed that internal and external undergraduates have ample thought about the concept of the CSR. Among 30 social issues, more than 50% are considered as ethical and philanthropic social responsibility by both internal and external undergraduates. More than 75% of internal and external undergraduates responded to social issues as ways of accommodation and pro-action. It is concluded that opinions of undergraduates about the CSR concept are excellent. As a recommendation, the education strategy is to be upgraded further to enhance the thinking and understanding of the CSR among management undergraduates to offer maximum benefits to society.

Keywords: Accommodation, Corporate Social Responsibility, Ethical Responsibility, External & Internal Undergraduates, Philanthropic Responsibility, Pro-action

For full Paper: fmscresearch@sjp.ac.lk