Corporate social responsibility: a cluster analysis of manufacturing firms in India

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.