The review of corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature in the new millennium

Abstract

Corporate Social responsibility (CSR) is one of the most researched topics ever since the first definition of CSR was given in 1953. CSR is a widely researched topic both by the academicians and the practitioners. Although there have been many literature reviews in this topic before, there has been very limited research on the literature review in this topic focusing only on the articles published after the year 2000. The main objective of the study is to review the literature related to CSR in the new millennium. The second objective of the study is to analyze the relationship of CSR and firm’s financial performance based on the literature review of the articles related to the relationship between CSR and firm’s financial performance from the year 2000. The study used a systematic way to review the past literature indexed in Web of Science (WOS) database, with a combination of both statistical and content analysis. The articles related to CSR were searched using the keyword CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility. Then the articles related to CSR performance were shortlisted for further analysis. The final analysis included 74 most relevant articles after eliminating those which are not directly related to the relationship between CSR and firm’s financial performance. The findings indicated that around 69.4% of the study related to CSR from the year 2000 onwards was related to CSR and firm’s performance. The findings also highlighted that around 57% of the study related to the CSR and firm’s financial performance shows a positive relationship. However, only 5% of the studies under this topic show a negative relationship, 20% show a mixed relationship and the balance 18% shows a neutral relationship. The study gives an understanding on the changing dynamics of the literature related to CSR. The positive relationship between CSR and firm’s financial performance is an encouraging signs for the corporations. The results of the studies should convince the managers that the companies with good CSR practices are likely to have a competitive edge over its competitors. Future study may increase the sample size of the articles related to the relationship between CSR and firm’s financial performance, or to identify the result differences across different countries and sectors.