Corporate social responsibility of private health care providers: A case study of narayana hrudayalaya

World over there is a change in the philosophy of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). According to Stroup et al. (1987), popular consensus on CSR has changed from corporations “voluntarily doing good,” to “mandated,” to now “doing better by doing good.” The operationalization of this change is reflected in the shift from philanthropic to multi-stake holder engagement of CSR and the CSR strategies. These strategies clearly set out the conditions under which engaging in social change programmes can create competitive advantage and leads to superior financial as well as social performance (Bryan and Allen, 2011). ith the introduction of Companies Act 2013, CSR of companies is mandatory and the act also clearly specified the activities which come under CSR. This has changed the nature of CSR initiatives of the companies of both public and private sectors. Numbers of companies have initiated several interventions under CSR. Private health care providers are not far behind in this regard. Though there are some research studies analyzing the impact of mandatory CSR, very few have focused on the CSR initiatives of health sector specifically. The complete structure and the process of dealing with CSR by such private health care providers are largely unknown. Privatization of health care services witnessed the emergence of several corporate multi-specialty hospitals in India. Though these hospitals provide comprehensive health care of high quality, the facilities are reachable only to certain section of the population. Under the CSR, the hospitals are taking activities which improve the access to those who cannot afford the health care. The present study makes an attempt to understand the CSR activities and the contribution of Narayana Hrudalaya (NH) towards the community. NH is one of the leading corporate hospitals in India which is meeting the health needs of the communities through its CSR interventions. The paper analyses the interventions of NH based on the case study method. The study reveals that the interventions of NH are complementary to their business and focusing on the rural development by providing access to several rural poor who are unable to get quality health care.