An empirical study of what institutions of higher education in the UK consider to be their corporate social responsibility

摘要

The field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is relatively new when compared with other fields. It was in the 1980s that corporate entities around the world started to generate increasing interest in CSR, as we currently know it. However, a search of the literature has revealed that researchers in the field have tended to concentrate more efforts on the CSR of profit seeking corporate entities. Unfortunately this does not appear to be the case when it comes to the CSR of not-for-profit (NFP) corporate entities such as educational establishments (schools, colleges and universities), hospitals, the police, the armed forces, the fire services and other social entities that play equally important roles in modern economies. Do these NFP organisations consider that they have a role to play in CSR as is perceived by corporate stakeholders in the 21st century? If they do, then do they play these roles as effectively as they should? How do these entity stakeholders perceive the contributions they make to society's well-being? These and other pertinent questions are what this research study seeks to find answers to. The study looks at what the UK's institutions of higher education consider to be their corporate social responsibilities and how they have absorbed these responsibilities into what they do in order to discharge these responsibilities to local, national and international communities. The research shows that most institutions of higher education in the UK are conscious that they owe some responsibility to all their stakeholders and are striving to demonstrate this awareness in various ways.