Abstract:
Among many scholars in the world, one school of thoughts believe CSR should be used
mainly as a social endeavor and the others think it should be linked to the corporate strategy
for financial performance. This paper aims to observe how social endeavor approach of CSR
initiatives leads to sustainability specially an environment where economic wounds are been
settling and new opportunities are been evolving after a 30 year long civil unrest in a society.
Pilot study revealed that over 70% of corporates in Sri Lanka are merely using CSR for
charitable and social work and only 11% are practicing CSR for strategic purposes. The most
important factor of all is the continuous support that a government and the society at large
expect from corporates in rebuilding the economy in terms of selecting proper projects and
the sustainability of those for betterment of corporates and the society. Therefore, the
research focuses on the sustainability of CSR initiatives within the framework of social
model. The social antecedents recognized in this model are social environment and biological
environment and the study attempts to identify the core societal focus of those in building
CSR initiatives for sustainability.
The study was done among the sample of 360 direct and indirect beneficiaries among 40
initiated projects of 40 corporates in Sri Lanka during 05 years after a long civil war and used
primary collected data for analysis. The researcher has used frequency percentage to
summarize, descriptive data analysis and structural equation methods to test hypotheses.
Interestingly, it was found that implementing CSR initiatives focusing merely benefiting the
society do not support sustainability of those initiatives. In conclusion, it is advisable for
corporates to rethink the existing approach merely for the sustainability of those projects and
also it is important that governments too support those initiatives in rebuilding process.
