Corporate Social Responsibility and Society "Challenges and Way Forward”

Abstract

In the last two decades business organizations are engaging in a serious of effort to define and integrate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) into all aspects of their businesses. This is done with a view to build and strengthens relationships with its stakeholders.Thou there is a growing need among organizations to participate in CSR activities in the society, there is still a lot of challenges on how to develop and implement effective and efficient CSR programs especially in developing countries. The most common challenges relates to development and implementation of CSR programmes and ability to measure the impact of the programmes on the society and the organization. Some of the development and implementation challenges include inability to incorporate CSR programmes within the business strategy, challenge of developing CSR strategies within the context of the stakeholders' requirement and lastly difficulty in prioritizing stakeholders' goals and needs. In measuringthe financial and social impact the organizations are faced with the challenge of developing yard stick which will effectively and efficiently measure the impact.Therefore the increase in CSR activities calls for organizations to carefully identify and prioritize their stakeholders, then generates and pursues CSR programs that are consistent with stakeholders' goals, and measure the results in a fair and truthful manner. This paper presents an empirical literature review onchallenges facing CSR programmes tailored to societies and possible intervention strategies.