This document presents a research proposal on comparing the corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts of two paint companies in India - Asian Paints and Nerolac. The proposal outlines the background and importance of CSR, identifies the research topic and hypotheses, and describes the objectives, literature review, methodology, variables, expected outcomes, and references. Specifically, the research aims to analyze the relationship between company profits and CSR spending over five years, and determine which CSR activities receive the most funding. Quantitative analysis of the companies' annual reports will be used to calculate the proportion of total profits allocated to CSR.

1. Business Research
Report
The need of
corporate social
responsibility in
the business
The social
performance
comparison of the
two paint
companies in
India
Presented by:
Harpreet Singh Perhar
EMV8777
MBA

2. Introduction
•CSR is the commitment of the businesses to contribute to sustainable economic
development working with employees, their families, the local community and society at
large to improve their quality of life in ways that are both for business and good for
international development. ¹ (Lazzeri, 2016)
•From the 1950’s to the present the concept of CSR has gained considerable acceptance and
has been broaden to include additional components
•CSR requires a decision makers to act in a way that protects and improve the welfare of
society as a whole along with safeguarding the own interests
•Carroll explains CSR in a four part definition which says that CSR encompasses the
economic, legal, ethical and discretionary expectations that society has of organisations at
any given point of time

3. Research topic
Is there any co-relation between involvements in corporate social
responsibility and firm’s financial capability? If yes, what is the co-
relation? If no, why?
The specific idea of the research is to find that how much proportion of
the total profits, the company have been spending on corporate social
responsibilities.
In order to achieve correct and trustworthy results the research has
been narrowed down to two companies

4. Hypothesis
CSR is an ethical concept
The demands for socially responsible actions exists everywhere and firms are
responding accordingly
The content of CSR has evolved over the time depending on historical, cultural,
political, social and economical and particularly conditions in different countries.
So One CSR standard is unlikely
It is assumed that there is positive co-relation in between companies annual
profit and their spending on CSR activities
Do companies spend more on educational and health causes?
Firms only donate for CSR activities if they are in profit

5. Research objectives
•To establish the general perception about the CSR across the globe
•To identify the key areas where companies tends to invest more money as their CSR
activity for instance, education, development, sports
•To asses how often firms engage themselves in CSR activities
•To calculate the average proportion of their total profits in contrast to investment in CSR
activities

6. Literature Review
•It was identified in literature review that some authors have given contrasting definition to
other as Bowen, 1953 explains CSR as obligation but Carroll, 1979 suggests that CSR is a
pure form of social responsibility
•Visser 2006, argues that CSR layer as defined by Carroll, 1979 in a pyramis tends to change
in a developing countries
•Deegan and Unerman (2011), underline the fact that there is a social contract between
society and business, hence business tries to legitimize their actions by involving in the
CSR activities and ensuring their existence.

7. Literature review continues…
•On CSR as a moral choice, Waddock et al. (2002) believes that
perceptions about how a corporation accepts and manages its
responsibilities are often part of the employee’s decision about
where to work.
•Freeman, 1984 suggests that while taking actions management
should be held accountable for safeguarding the interests of both
shareholders and stakeholders
•Rosabeth Moss Kanter - introduced the term innovation in CSR –
arguing that taking lessons from problems and their consequences
can lead to solving the problem with minimum resources

8. Methodology
In order to investigate the all aspects
of the research and obtain in-depth
quality result , the research project
will utilise quantitative method
research techniques.
Research will collect data of two
different paint companies (based in
India) in form of annual reports, for
past five years.
The companies are Asian Paints and
Nerolac which are both publically
listed company in NSE

9. Variables and Sampling Technique
As the research is limited to find the proportion of total profits spent on CSR activities
so variables for the research are:
1) Total Profits
2) Amount spent on CSR
3) Amount spent on Individual CSR activity
In terms of sampling the research is very simple and data is already complied in
form of annual reports provided by companies for the last five years.

10. Data Analysis
In the research as there are two companies, their data will be compared against
each other
The data of individual company will be compared against its own data form
previous years
Total spending will be measured against individual components
What has been the focus areas for two different companies in CSR activities
Collective analysis of data as where was most CSR money spend and what got the
least

11. Expected outcomes
It is expected that after the research positive co-relation will be found in between total
profits of company and their spending on CSR activities
A very good understanding will be established of the fact that which are the key areas that
companies think are the best to invest in as a CSR program
It will be clear whether the amount of total profits do affect the decisions of investing in
CSR
Do companies stop investing or reduce the investment in CSR programs in the following
year if companies suffer the loss in particular year? – expecting to find an answer for this
The stance of companies over the CSR will give the clarity to the picture whether CSR is
popular among all sort of companies and industries as the selected companies are medium
size firm

12. References
Bowen, H.R, 1953.Social responsibilities of the businessman, Harper & Row, New York.
Carroll, A.B., 1991. The pyramid of corporate social responsibility: Toward the moral
management of organizational stakeholders. Business Horizons, 39-48.
Waddock, S., Bodwell, C. and Graves, S., 2002. Responsibility: The new business
imperative. Academy of Management Executive, 16(2), 132-149.
Freeman, R. E., 1984. Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. Pitman, Boston.
Boatright, R., 2003. Ethics and the conduct of business. Pearson Education International,
New York.
Visser, W., 2006. Revisiting Carroll‟s CSR pyramid: An African perspective, In Pedersen
E.R., and Huniche, M. (ed.), corporate citizenship in developing countries, Copenhagen.
Copenhagen Business School Press, 29–56.