Review of the various dimensions of university social responsibility and their impact on stakeholders satisfaction

Abstract

The obligation of an organisation regarding the impact of its policies and actions on the society newlineand environment can be termed as Social Responsibility. Corporate Social Responsibility has newlinebeen an important and permanent feature in the business world for many decades now. India s newlineCompanies Act, 2013, gave a legal form to this aspect. Institutes of higher education exist to newlineeducate, provide an environment to attract the best minds and collaborate to impact all the newlinestakeholders. To achieve sustainability, CSR has become embedded in many universities too. newlineGlobal changes in economic, political, environmental, technological, or social fields have newlinecontributed to a change in the role of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Indirect references to newlinesocial good is found under the guidelines of various regulatory bodies in India s higher newlineeducation. However, none mentions social responsibility of the universities. This study newlineattempted to identify the dimensions of University Social Responsibility, examined the salience newlineof these dimensions, and created a survey instrument to assess the satisfaction of different newlinestakeholders across the identified University Social Responsibility dimensions. With deductive newlineresearch approach, the study was conducted within the University Ecosystem of two private newlineuniversities in the state of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. 510 students and 157 faculty and staff newlinewere the identified stakeholders for the study. USR study identified seven dimensions with 46 newlinevariables. Importance of each dimension was assessed against the satisfaction level and results newlinerevealed that the respondents were not as satisfied as they had expected to be. The difference newlinebetween the importance and satisfaction did not go above the mean in most cases. They were newlinemost satisfied as regards the environmental aspects and the least satisfied as regards the safety newlineand peace aspects. In this study respect for human rights, ethics, accountability, and transparency newlineare considered a necessary ingredient for all the dimensions. These are pri