LEVEL OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY INVOLVEMENT OF SRI LANKAN BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS: SPECIAL STUDY ON INSURANCE INDUSTRY

Corporate social responsibility is an organizations obligation to minimize its negative impact on the society and maximize its positive impact on the society. Preliminary study revealed that most of the business organizations used CSR as cosmetic, and their involvement with CSR changed with the profitability and budgetary constraints.Here the research was designed with the general objective of identifying existing level of CSR involvement of insurance companies. Specific objectives were to identify the internal and external factors leading to the above identified level of CSR involvement. Strategy/Society Pyramid of Liyanage (2007) was taken as the conceptual framework of the research. The study used three main data gathering techniques; secondary documents, standard questionnaires and in-depth interviews. It was identified that majority of the insurance companies located at the lower level of the Strategy/Society pyramid, considering CSR as either pure philanthropy or part of marketing communication but it was recognized that most of the managers were with positive attitude of moving to a higher level of CSR involvement, especially to strategic CSR level, where it creates competitive advantage. Nine key reasons were identified as those internal factors influencing the low level of CSR involvement, and six main reasons as those external factors influencing the corporate motivation towards involvement in CSR activities. The researcher recommended six strategies for the management to follow in the process of moving to a higher degree of CSR involvements.Key Words: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Strategy/Society Pyramid, Philanthropic, Cause RelatedMarketing, Insurance Sector For full paper: fmscresearch@sjp.ac.l