eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to map the impacts of CSR activities on the society and economy at large, and to analyse the discourses used to study the subject, by conducting a qualitative meta-analysis. Although the area of research is narrow, information about CSR's impacts does exist, and therefore it is possible to conduct a study where the previous data of various impacts are gathered together to build a more complete idea of the impacts at large.

Data

The data consists of 87 articles which have been tabulated and analysed. The articles are published between 1972 and 2010 and include information of 5855 companies.

Results

The results show that CSR does have impacts on the society and economy, which are mainly positive. The impacts on economy emerge from several components increasing the companies’ performance, and the impacts on social issues tend to affect customers, consumers and employees, but also other stakeholders and general attitudes. The findings related to research approaches support previous literature since based on the data, positive approach is most popular in North America and interpretive and critical approaches more commonly used in Europe. Interpretive approach emerged later than positive, normative and critical approaches. Positive approach is the most popular one, which is in line with the finding that studying economic impacts on companies is far more common than studying social or environmental impacts.