CSR measurement in India: Problems and prospects

‘Corporate Social responsibility (CSR)’ is no longer considered as an optional add-on activity of business. It has now become imperative for business to engage in CSR. But the concept has been fraught with measurement difficulties which are causing hindrances for companies to embrace it fully. While many measurement tools have evolved in the western context and various indices have been developed, in the context of emerging economies like India, there is no instrument to measure CSR comprehensively. This paper seeks to take a look at the various attempts to capture the elusive concept of CSR using various measurement tools, problems associated with those tools and suggests guidelines to evolve measurement instrument in the context of emerging economies like India. The significance of the paper lies in comprehensively reviewing the measures of CSR in the literature and suggesting a framework to design such a tool.