Corporate social responsibility practice and organizational performance of Nzoia Sugar Ccompany Limited, Kenya

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a strategy used by organizations to achieve their Performance as well as benefit the community. Nzoia Sugar Company is one of the organizations that embrace CSR practice and therefore it is expected to have good performance. The company experiences challenges such as inadequate supply of raw materials as a result of inefficiency in payment of suppliers and limited profits as a result of less sales, among others. The purpose of the study was to examine how corporate social responsibility practice affected organizational performance. The study was guided by stakeholder theory which puts emphasis on the need for organizations to secure the interests of stakeholders and shareholders. Data collection was done by structured and semi-structured questionnaires and interviews guides. The reliability of the instruments was checked by use of Cronbach's alpha which was 0.78 that was high enough, while validity was checked by use of content validity index whose value was 0.66. Pearson correlation coefficient (r) was used to establish the relationship between the variables. The test was conducted at p< 01 and p< 05 significance level. The results indicated that sponsorship of sports had the highest influence on performance with correlation of r = 0.761, followed by educational support with r = 0.672. Promotion of community health and supporting income generating activities had r = 0.488 and r = 0.540 respectively. Findings provide insights about the type of CSR activities that may be important in influencing performance of companies. The company can also make their CSR practice known to the community and beyond through advertisements