Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a form of corporate
self-regulation integrated into a business model. It is also known by different names such
as corporate responsibility, corporate citizenship, responsible business,
Sustainable Responsible Business (SRB) and corporate social performance. Under
CSR, companies are supposed to voluntarily adopt self-regulating mechanisms
whereby they monitor and ensure their adherence to law, follow ethical standards
and international norms. As the working of the companies (interchangeably used
with business) has an impact on the environment, consumers, employees,
communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere, it is their
moral responsibility to take into consideration their interests. Under the prevailing
scenario of ever-degrading environment, health hazards and security scams,
businesses are expected to proactively promote the public interest by encouraging
community growth, development and voluntary elimination of practices that harm the
public sphere. In short, CSR calls for the care of people, planet and profit by the
business. Despite the growing importance of this concept at the international level, the
picture is not that rosy in India. The various stock market scams from Harshad Mehta
to Ketan Parikh, the saga of Satyam proving itself to be `Asatyam',
environmental degradation caused by the companies, over-exploitation of resources for
the personal profit making, etc., are enough to prove that Indian business has
not matured enough to fulfill its CSR. The answer to such problems lies in the
creation of awareness among the youth to come forward to develop an opinion about
CSR. After all, the future of India depends on the youth. They can make
companies understand their responsibility towards various segments of the society. This
study is an attempt to know about the attitude of the youth towards the concept of
CSR. Further, the data obtained from the youth will be helpful in providing guidelines
to the companies with regard to CSR.
Keeping in view the objectives of the study, descriptive research design has
been used for conducting this research. Information has been collected using both
primary and secondary methods. In order to make the surveys interactive, the
required information has been collected by way of personal interviews through a
structured non-disguised questionnaire. The questionnaire consists of 46 queries relevant
to the type of information that is to be extracted from the respondents in order to
fulfill the objectives of the study. |
