In the world of business, the paramount responsibility of the businessman has historically been to make profit and increase the shareholder value. In other words the motive of operating business has been the “corporate financial responsibility”. However in today’s competitive world every company is striving to achieve competitive edge in the global market which is not feasible by achieving corporate financial responsibility In this modern era, the drivers of competitive advantage is not restricted to corporate financial responsibility but it also includes other issues such as brand loyalty, staff morale and motivation, reputational risk, environmental sustainability and many other. By keeping this knowledge in mind, in the last decade a movement describing wider concept of corporate responsibilities- for local communities, for ethical responsibility, for the environment, and for working condition, has grown and taken grip. This new driving force is CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)

What is Corporate Social Responsibility?

Particularly there is no universal definition of CSR , in general it means transparent business practices which are based on value of ethics along with fulfilling legal requirements and respect for the environment, community and people. Hence company is not responsible for profit only but also for the impact of their operation on people and the planet. Here the term people includes- company’s stakeholders: its customers, employees, investors, business partners, vendors, and suppliers, the government and the community [1]. In business world, CSR is alternatively referred to “corporate citizenship”.

According to South China Morning Post, 2002:

The desire of companies looking beyond profits to their role in society is generally

termed as corporate social responsibility .This term refers to a company linking itself with building employee relations, ethical values, compliance with legal requirements transparency, and all together respect for the communities in which they run. It goes beyond the occasional community service action, however, as Corporate social responsibility is a corporate philosophy that draws strategic decision-making, hiring practices, partner selection, and, ultimately, development of brand.[2]

History of CSR

The story of social and environment concern about business began with the story of business itself. There are many cases which indicate the presence of Corporate Social Responsibility in long time back. For example we can trace the Commercial logging operations and laws to protect forests around 5000 year back. In Ancient Mesopotamia in 1700 BC, under the rule of King Hammurabia there was a code which says builders, farmers, or innkeepers would put to death if their negligence cause any harm, inconvenience or death to local citizens. In 1622 disgruntled shareholders of Dutch East India Company used to issue pamphlets about the self enrichment and management secrecy.

By the 1920s the Corporate Social Responsibility became one of the important issues for discussion this gave the beginning to the “morden’ Corporate Social Responsibility movement [5]. Between 1900 and 1960 the corporate world slowly began to accept and adopt additional responsibilities towards society other than making a profit and obeying the law. Many believed that corporate world has the capability of avoiding social problems. Many legal mandates were designed for business related to product safety, equal employment opportunity, worker safety and the environment safety. In addition to this, society began to make expectation out of the corporate world that it would contribute towards the betterment of the society and will voluntarily participate in solving the problems related to the society. This expectation was based on the view that business should extend its responsibility beyond the economic and legal responsibility and should also cover responsibility towards the society.

In this way Corporate social Responsibility came into the world of corporate and became one of the major and vital strategy for achieving and maintaing sustainability in this global world [6].

Corporate Governance is not the same as Corporate Social R