HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS AND SOCIAL PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM PUBLIC AND PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES

The paper proposes that universities should make social responsibility part of their triple bottom lines - economic, environment and social. The aim of the paper is to examine public and private universities' approach to social responsibilities in a developing country. 10 years of annual reports from 2000-2009 were obtained and scrutinised into social performance categories proposed by Puukka (2008): promotion of well-being; promotion of know-how; promotion of ownership and community involvement. The findings show that the two universities have responded differently to social responsibility. The more traditional public university which struggled to preserve its organizational identity focused its social responsibilities internally (towards existing students and staff) rather than towards the outside communities. It is interesting to note that the private university employed a very distinctive strategy by using social responsibility platforms to not only preserve its legitimacy but actually as part of its response to the ever-changing demands and pressures. These findings revealed that social responsibility was important to universities for survival, or at least for enhancing their legitimacy.