Influence of Colombian universities on their students' perception of Corporate Social Responsibility

The content on Corporate Social Responsibility taught at universities influences students' perceptions of this concept. Hence the importance of the main objective of this work: to evaluate whether management students from different universities in the same country have similar or different perceptions of this concept. A sample of 925 management students from nine Colombian universities was selected, and it was measured whether they were able to recognize 18 Corporate Social Responsibility practices. Through factor analysis, it was validated that these practices operationalize four dimensions of Social Responsibility (internal, with sustainability, with market stakeholders, with the community). It was found that: 1) the recognition of these dimensions is relatively high, but that there is greater recognition of the first two; 2) perceptions are not influenced by universities or other academic variables (career and degree), but they are partially influenced by socio-demographic variables (gender, age, work experience). It is concluded that Colombian universities teach similar content on social responsibility, but they focus more on sustainability and internal responsibility.