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A charity’s core purpose is legally mandated and delivery thereof is not a corporate social responsibility (CSR) activity which, by definition, is voluntary in nature. Any CSR activity not required by law should be “incidental” and be an outcome of a core purpose/object and not a focus of activity. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to address the lack of research into voluntary CSR activities conducted by charities so that charities might have a clearer operating platform and do not involuntarily contravene legislation.

This was an exploratory investigation using purposive sampling of senior leaders in UK charities. This study uses a case study approach to identify pragmatic areas of concern and also identify practical actions.

The conventional hierarchical ordering of Carroll’s CSR pyramid (1991) for profit-focussed organisations were found to be inconsistent with those for charitable organisations which were: ethical, legal, economic and philanthropic/voluntary/incidental.

This was an exploratory study and would benefit from further investigation.

Corporate social responsibility actions undertaken by charities need to be carefully evaluated to ensure that they comply with the core charitable purpose or are incidental.

Many employees in charities are motivated by social justice; however, they need to be cautious that they do not exceed the core purpose of the charity.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no research was identified which has addressed the fundamental issue of charities’ core purposes and the extent to which charities might legally undertake CSR activities.

The purpose of this study is to examine variables and their relationships that hinder socially responsible behaviours in the supply chain of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). countries.

The study uses the mixed-method approach that includes the survey method and soft mathematical modelling. Empirical data were collected from 130 SMEs and their suppliers based in Qatar and Oman. Furthermore, to understand the barriers and their interrelationships, interpretive structural modelling approach is applied.

The results of empirical study reveal lack of coherence among SMEs and their suppliers in prioritising social responsibility issues in their supply chain. The hierarchy-based model reveals that shortages of incentive, short-term objectives, the lack of cooperation and willingness among supply chain partners, constraints (financial, managerial and technological) and the pressure from customers were the independent barriers and have strong driving power.

The findings of this study are expected to provide an insight to further improve and promote socially responsible supply chain in emerging economies in Gulf region. Future research could compare the socially responsible activities of SMEs from different Gulf countries and expand the understanding of the barriers that outline the responses of suppliers situated in different Gulf economies.

The results contribute to the field of supply chain sustainability as the first academic attempt to shed light on how SMEs in GCC are dealing with supply chain social responsibility issues and one of the few in the emerging economy perspective that probes the key role of barriers to improve the socially responsible behaviour of Gulf-based SMEs.

Studies showed that stakeholders want the construction sector’s organisations to be more accountable and transparent regarding social and environmental issues through corporate social responsibility (CSR). There is a paucity of literature regarding CSR implementation in the construction sector, especially in developing countries like South Africa. Hence, the study evaluated CSR’s merits and hindrances and suggested solutions to enhance its implementation in the South African construction sector of Mpumalanga Province.

The researchers employed a questionnaire survey method to collect data from 68 useable respondents in the South African construction sector of Mpumalanga Province. The main section of the questionnaire was divided into three parts, each addressing an objective mean item score ranking technique.

Findings show management lacks willingness, absence of recognition for implementing CSR at tender adjudication, professionals regard CSR as a “soft issue,” inadequate ability to carry out CSR initiatives and lax CSR knowledge emerged as the key issues hindering construction stakeholders, especially construction companies, from participating in CSR in South Africa. The research suggests initiatives to enhance CSR in the construction industry.

The study shows that the findings can be used to improve the implementation of CSR engagement and possibly enhance a policy to stimulate friendly CSR in the South African construction sector.

Several organisations dedicate a portion of their budget and business websites to corporate social responsibility (CSR) events. This illustrates the significance attached to CSR events. In Ghana, a social disconnection may exist between the community and the construction sector. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the benefits of CSR in the construction industry, the implementation challenges and measures to enhance CSR in the Ghanaian built environment.

The qualitative technique was adopted using an extensive review of literature supported by structured interviews and analysed by context analysis. The participants include ministry and municipal directors, contractor associations, unions and institutions of engineers. The study achieved saturation.

Findings reveal that the construction industry’s CSR impacts the community’s social behaviour and has economic and environmental significance. The absence of government implementation policy and finance constraints were identified as Ghana’s major CSR implementation challenges. Also, besides the government instituting a mandatory policy on CSR in the industry, findings suggest that stakeholders, especially players in the industry and policymakers, should form an integral part of the CSR decisions.

Findings will support and recommend holistic measures to mitigate CSR implementation hindrances and encourage CSR via a central government's mandatory policy in the Ghanaian built environment.

Besides most studies used questionnaires, the contribution deduced shows that construction companies' management could use the knowledge from this study and involve all the relevant stakeholders when undertaking CSR activities. Also, the study would fill the scarcity of relevant materials concerning CSR in Ghanaian construction sector.

Although many Lebanese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) express concern about social and environmental issues and report intentions to engage in pro-environmental activities, other enterprises still resist to embed a culture of social responsibility. After the analysis of major scholarship in the field, this paper defines corporate social responsibility (CSR) culture and provides an overview of the contemporary debate on it.

Through exploratory study, this paper identifies reasons why Lebanese SMEs do not embody CSR into their culture. The empirical data were gathered through 18 in-depth interviews with questions based on the main research questions.

Findings reveal that resistance to change is one of the main drivers of resistance to CSR. Collective and organizational culture can source this resistance to CSR.

This paper contributes to filling the gap in the literature in relation to CSR in small-medium firms and in particular Lebanese SMEs.

The objective of this study is to examine CSR practices in the Maldives.

The perceptions of business and non-business stakeholders were analysed in order to identify CSR practices that are idiosyncratic to the Maldives and to reflect on the relevance of current mainstream CSR agenda for the Maldives. Surveys and in-depth interviews were used to draw the perceptions of a sample of 52 businesses and 36 non-business stakeholders. The study adopts an interpretive methodology to analyse the perceptions and to reflect on extant CSR theories.

The paper suggests mediocre CSR practices of businesses and lukewarm responses from non-business stakeholders in the Maldives. There is a difference between what businesses consider ought to be CSR practices (the normative) and their actual CSR practices. Businesses prefer to keep their CSR practices discreet as publicity may cause increasing demands from local communities for financial and other assistance. CSR practices in the Maldives are also influenced by the local Islamic culture. The meaning of CSR prevalent in the context of more advanced western economies may prove to be superfluous in the context of the Maldives, a small and developing Islamic country struggling to meet the basic needs of its people.

This study represents the first research on CSR activities in the Maldives. It contributes to existing literature by challenging the relevance of mainstream CSR practices to a developing economy.

Although corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been an issue of major concern for marketers for more than half a century, only recently has it attracted the attention of international marketing researchers. During the last two decades, this body of research has experienced an increasing trend, which, however, is very fragmented and diverse. In response, the purpose of this paper is to review, assess, and synthesize extant research on the role of CSR activities in international marketing.

The review and assessment covered the period from 1993 to 2013 and all relevant articles were traced, using both electronic and manual search methods. Altogether, the authors identified 132 studies published in 106 articles that appeared in 63 journals. Each article was content analyzed by two coders who worked independently from each other, using a structured coding protocol. Due to the nominal nature of the finalized codes, these were statistically analyzed taking the form of percentage frequencies.

The results were organized in terms of theoretical, methodological, and empirical considerations. Theoretically, a third of the articles were not anchored on any theory, while the remainder employed various theoretical platforms, with stakeholder theory having a predominant role. Methodologically, this specific body of research is characterized by growing sophistication and rigor, with some room for improvement, especially as regards the use of longitudinal research, better sampling methods, wider geographic scope, and advanced statistical analysis. Empirically, a broad range of issues was covered, with the most widely studied being those focussing on the elements of international marketing strategy, external environmental influences, and CSR practices.

The authors review and assess 21 years of research conducted on a crucial and contemporary dimension of international marketing, namely CSR. The findings provide useful insights for public policymakers, business managers, academic scholars, and marketing educators. The authors also provide detailed directions for future research, extracted from the articles reviewed.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance is critical to address construction activities’ environmental and social impacts. This study aims to evaluate the level of CSR implementation across various categories within the context of the Vietnamese construction industry.

The literature review and semi-structured interviews were conducted to determine Vietnamese construction organizations’ most commonly implemented CSR activities. A total of 252 valid responses were then obtained through a questionnaire survey. In addition, the fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) method was used to evaluate the extent to which CSR categories have been implemented in construction companies.

The findings revealed 31 commonly implemented CSR activities of the Vietnamese construction firms, which were grouped into four categories. Of the four categories, the FSE analysis showed that stakeholder CSR was the most critical category, followed by ethical CSR, philanthropic CSR and environmental CSR.

This research provides valuable CSR activities to construction companies that intend to develop sustainably. Moreover, the proposed prioritization methodology offers practitioners a reliable and easy-to-use evaluation tool that clearly understands CSR performance within their organizations.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) remains a prevalent topic for businesses worldwide, especially for those operating in developing countries. The attention on small and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs') CSR engagement in developing countries has been neglected, although SMEs play a vital role in socio-economic development in African countries like Kenya. This paper aims to conceptualize the relationship between the SME manager's values, ethics, emotional commitment to long-term socio-economic development and the firm's CSR practices.

The authors conducted seven semi-structured interviews with Kenyan and German SMEs located in Nairobi. A deductive-inductive analysis approach was chosen, confirming previous findings and contributing new ideas to the International Business (IB) literature.

This paper develops a concept linking the values and beliefs of the SME manager with the firm's CSR practices in developing countries via the manager's emotional commitment to local long-term socio-economic development. The Kenyan managers tend to show a higher degree of emotional commitment, which the authors explain by two drivers: (1) philanthropic, self-motivated driver and (2) expectation-based, environment-motivated driver. The authors' findings add to the literature on SMEs' CSR engagement in developing countries by looking at the individual level of analysis.

This paper develops a concept linking the values and beliefs of the SME manager with the firm's CSR practices in developing countries.

This paper aims to identify the corporate social responsibility (CSR) patterns of Indian manufacturing firms using a CSR index based on ISO26000 and India’s National Voluntary CSR Guidelines.

A total of 121 manufacturing enterprises in the national capital region (NCR) were surveyed. The questions related to the involvement of CSR in business strategy, involvement in CSR planning, involvement in environmental activities, involvement in social activities, monitoring, evaluation and involvement in CSR, reporting and policy and deployment of CSR. A two-step cluster analysis using log-likelihood measures was used to identify groupings in the data set based on their performance across the seven issues.

The two distinctive segments identified adopted intermediate CSR activities, and one undertook advanced CSR activities.

This study has several limitations. First, the survey data were drawn exclusively from medium-sized enterprises in the NCR. Second, all the indicators in the CSR index were equally weighted.

This paper contributes to the literature by grouping manufacturers’ CSR activities based on seven dimensions suggested in ISO26000 and India’s National Voluntary Guidelines. The results of this study can help managers, boards and regulators better understand CSR and identify ways to improve it further.