Indian Perspective in CSR: Mapping Leaders’ Orientation

Abstract

The essence of responsibility in leadership can help to integrate course of action of policy makers and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). This will augment meaningfulness of the humanity in human in the present era of isolationism, when everyone is becoming the part of the race. However, the precise criterion of different contexts of behaviour for Corporate Social Performance (CSP) that the pioneers or leaders understood and demonstrate the accountability is uncertain. This ambiguity and multiple dimensions of responsible leadership (RL) present in the current literature are concurring. Gaps identified indicates that there should be a methodical research on the impact of such leadership on the societal and firm level of outcomes. By following interpretivism approach in research, this paper relies on the content analysis of speeches, welcome stories, biographies and recorded interviews of selected business leaders and entrepreneurs in India. This research study identifies four different dimensions of orientation that leaders practice while fulfilling their responsibility and envisioning CSR. The limitation of this study is that it tries to map the leader's orientation under a cultural spectrum, but its findings still provide major insights for the future perspective of research based on the RL matrix model. The outcome of this study will be useful for the leaders to recognise the dimensions of responsible leadership for creating value addition in their style and practices. The model identified envisages practical implications of the corporate social responsibility theory.

Citation

Srivastava, A.K., Gupta, A. and Dixit, S. (2020), "Indian Perspective in CSR: Mapping Leaders’ Orientation", Crowther, D. and Quoquab, F. (Ed.) CSR in an age of Isolationism (Developments in Corporate Governance and Responsibility, Vol. 16), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 205-217. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2043-052320200000016011