Corporate social responsibility motives of Indian firms

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the motives of Indian firms for engaging with corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and their interplay by using interpretive structural modelling methodology (ISM) and Matrice d'impacts croises multiplication appliquee a un classment (MICMAC) analysis. Design/methodology/approach The research uses ISM and Matrice d'impacts croises multiplication appliquee a un classment (MICMAC) analysis to find the structural relationship among the CSR motives of the Indian firms identified from the past literature and agreed upon by the experts. Findings The ISM model indicates that firms primarily engage in CSR either because of top management commitment to certain values, to meet the legal mandate or of the pressure from the NGOs. The top management commitment gives a strategic orientation to CSR, which results in community engagement by the firm as one of the important components of the strategy. The community engagement helps in engaging with its employees and investors along with finding sources of innovations, which, in turn, help the firm in engaging its customers, managing corporate reputation and getting a cost advantage. Collectively, these help them in improving their financial performance. However, the model highlights two autonomous sources, meeting legal mandate and pressure from NGOs also motivate firms to engage in CSR without having any strategic thought or engagement with its strategic system. Originality/value The study provides a comprehensive listing of CSR motives of Indian firms along with the structural relationships among the identified CSR motives. The model developed provides CSR professionals and policymakers an understanding of the primary CSR motives along with their driving power and dependence. This insight will help them in manipulating these motives for better CSR engagement by the Indian firms.