Consequences of Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives for Stakeholders

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a self-regulation model for businesses to be socially accountable to society and stakeholders. The research problem is that some managers have a limited understanding of the consequences of strategic CSR initiatives for stakeholders to maximize company’s profits in the United States. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the implications of U.S. corporations’ CSR initiatives for stakeholders while maximizing profitability. The conceptual framework that grounded this study was the stakeholder theory of CSR and agency theory, which provided an appropriate lens for data collection and analysis. An online questionnaire of 10 open-ended questions was distributed to 11 CSR implementor participants. The data supported secondary data from the company’s CSR regulations and public documentation. I analyzed gathered data through manual coding and using NVivo 10 software. The findings revealed five major themes and showed that the companies’ CSR implementors’ motivations are consistent with the literature, indicating CSR as an essential strategy to build a strong brand reputation for the company, create value for stakeholders, and increase profitability. The study’s significance for positive social change might stem from an enhanced understanding of the challenges managers face in implementing CSR policy formulations on CSR by organizations