A comparative study of corporate sustainability, strategic corporate social responsibility and market value creation among companies operating in India

‘A comparative study of corporate sustainability, strategic corporate social responsibility and market value creation among companies operating in India’ is an original research carried out in India. The study consists of two parts-qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative part includes practice-oriented study on corporate sustainability (CS) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives undertaken by multinational companies, Indian private companies and public sector enterprises operating in India. The quantitative part includes study on five dimensions of strategic CSR (Burke & Logsdon 1996); the pyramid of CSR (Carroll 1991); three components of CSR, namely principles of charity, stewardship (Lawrence, Weber & Post 2005), and environmental friendliness for market value creation among enterprises operating in India. The research design is a mixed sequential exploratory model (Tashakkori & Teddlie 2003) wherein qualitative research followed by quantitative research for theory development and testing. The qualitative research involves information gathered through author’s own two decades of industry experience; gathering information and interacting with senior management professionals practicing CS and/or CSR in 43 companies (multinationals, Indian private and public sector enterprises) operating in India. The validity of data gathered through qualitative research is determined through triangulation, pattern matching and member checking. The analysis of qualitative data was undertaken using thematic analysis- coding, data reduction, categorization, and theme development. The themes derived from clusters of companies analyzed, compared in terms of CS and CSR initiatives. The qualitative study reflects relative performance of CS and CSR per company in descending order as: PSE (2.70), Indian private (2.18) and MNC (1.00).