ABSTRACT
It is widely agreed that private sector businesses are important and indispensable partners in contributing to sustainable development (Carroll and Shabana 2010). Over decades, the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR), which captures the corporate contribution to sustainability, has evolved and grown in importance. Companies in many sectors are increasingly implementing diverse CSR practices and communicating their progress to the public and other stakeholders. However, despite significant progress made in recent years in adoption of CSR practices by business, many companies still find it difficult to choose appropriate initiatives, and even more difficult to evaluate the contribution these efforts have made. Better understanding and measurement of corporate social performance (CSP) is increasingly recognised as important both from a company’s perspective and from the stakeholders’ perspective. Companies are interested in finding effective ways to assess the effectiveness of their CSR initiatives in order to better manage them, improve decisions about resource allocation, and to communicate the achieved results to stakeholders in order to improve their corporate image and get recognition for their efforts. On the other hand, stakeholders increasingly want to find out about the corporations behind the brands and products they purchase, and are looking for greater transparency and accountability on their part (Lewis 2001).
