Corporate social responsibility : does it matter?

This study attempts to explore the impact and relationshp of social responsibility on the success of the selected manufacturing companies in Sri Lanka as a longitudinal study. It also identifies the most sensitive and critical factors of the pressing social issues on social responsibility. In this process six pressing social issues of economic, personal, product, environment, discrimination and community involvement were considered. Required data were gathered through a questionnaire and handbook of selected manufacturing companies. Success of each company was measured by the return on investment (ROl) of the company. Statistical techniques such as, simple and multiple regression analysis, principle component analysis and cluster analysis were used to identfy the relationship between the success of companies and social responsibility. The analysis shows that a signficant positive relationshp between the success of the selected companies and the level of social responsibility which replicate the findings of the original study. However, the economic and the personal issues were the most critical factors of the social responsibility with regard to this study.