This document proposes the Enriching Academic Corporate Loop (ACL) as a CSR initiative. It aims to bridge the gap between academic delivery and corporate requirements by enhancing student employability. The study examines CSR practices of 30 companies and finds they prioritize social dimensions. It also finds a gap in skills of MBA graduates hired. To address this, the study proposes techniques for ACL like industry mentors and student internships. While companies agree on the importance of enhancing employability, challenges in adoption include lack of time, funds and manpower. The techniques are deemed suitable but not widely implemented currently. The study concludes ACL can be established through these techniques as part of CSR to create mutual benefits for academia and corporates.

1. Enriching Academic Corporate Loop (ACL)
A CSR Initiative
GSCSR 2015
Prepared by: Mahima Gupta | Dr B K Som | Dr Ritu Bajaj

2. Need of the study
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Corporate sector utilises societal resources.
It is thus the duty of corporate sector to give back to the society in any form,
which is understood as ‘corporate social responsibility’
CSR generally takes into account activities like educating the poor, helping old
age homes, going green, reducing waste, sponsoring sports activities, giving
donations etc.
In this paper we propose a new dimension to corporate social responsibility –
‘Enhancing employability’.
By this the academia-corporate loop (ACL) can be enriched

3. Introduction
• classroom teaching not applicable
to real business environment
• role of CSR in education is
mitigating the skills
• Experimentation
• learning-by-doing along the way
• bridging the gap between
academic delivery and corporate
requirement
• study makes an attempt to check
the feasibility of Academic
Corporate Loop (in context of
enhancing employability)
3Jagan Institute of Management Studies

4. Introduction
• This loop explains that majority of corporate shall understand the importance of making society more
employable
• Shall put strong footstep to bridge the gap between academia and corporate
• By doing so, corporate will be able to cut on their cost of training as they will get ready to use manpower
• The paper, showcases and adds this dimension to corporate social responsibility and proposes a way for the
better implementation of this concept.
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5. Research Methodology
• A non-probabilistic quota sampling was adapted to get a sample of size 30 companies
• fall under the control categories i.e. a net worth of 500 Cr or an annual turnover of greater than 1000 Cr or a profit of 5
Cr or more
• 10 companies each falling in all the 3 categories as mentioned were a part of the sample in the study
• These companies need to spend 2% of the average of last 3 years profits towards CSR activity
• The respondents are top or middle level managers who are a part of the CSR committee
• part of Government of India inclusive growth strategy in order to implement CSR through corporate sector, a separate
3 member CSR committee needs to be formed
• A scheduled interview was used for filling up questionnaires from the companies in Delhi and NCR
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6. Objectives
6
To examine the dimensions of CSR
adopted by companies
To examine the feasibility of
Academic Corporate Loop
To examine the challenges for
corporate while taking CSR
initiative for Academic Corporate
Loop
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7. Questionnaire Flow
7
Demographic Details
Generic perception
about CSR
Involvement of
organization in CSR
Perception about
knowledge of
PGDM/MBA campus
recruits
Opinion on existence
& suitability of
proposed ACL
enrichment techniques
Challenges faced
during adoption of
CSR
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8. Data Analysis & Interpretation
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9. Data analysis - Involvement in CSR
• The table represents that the corporate professionals give
‘Social factor’ the maximum weightage while considering
CSR.
• This is followed by Economic and Environmental
dimension.
• This states that the corporates want to serve the social
aspect before benefitting the stakeholders economically or
the environment.
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Dimension Cumulative %
Social 100
Economic 83
Environmental 77
Stakeholder 37
Voluntary 0
Table 1: Ranking of CSR dimensions
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10. 53.3
50.0
46.7
43.3 43.3
36.7
33.3 33.3
30.0
23.3
6.7 3.3
13%
26%
37%
48%
59%
68%
76%
84%
92%
98% 99% 100%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
120%
0.0
10.0
20.0
30.0
40.0
50.0
60.0
Data analysis – Linking education with CSR
initiatives
• 46.7% of the organizations
mentioned that educating the
under-privileged is a part of their
existing CSR practices.
• This shows the importance of
linking education with CSR in
the corporate environment.
• The activities which fall to the
left of the vertical line –
Environmental protection|
Assistance during natural
calamities| Educating
underprivileged and Community
development programs alone
form approximately half the CSR
activities list
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Figure 1 – Proportion of specific CSR activities through Pareto Chart representation
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11. Data analysis - Linking academia and corporate
• 96.7% respondents mentioned that their organization
hires PGDM/MBA students.
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Figure 2 : Proportion of PGDM/MBA recruits through ring representation
96.7
3.3
Hire PGDM/MBA Don’t hire PGDM/MBA
Average Score of satisfaction from
PDGM/MBA recruits
If a significance of even 10% is assumed then the variation of 1.6
(5.0-3.4) is too high.
3.4/5
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12. Data analysis - Linking academia and corporate
• Corporate is not satisfied with the level of
knowledge on the mentioned skills.
• On skills such as initiative taking, problem
solving, commitment, self-management,
analytical decision making and team work the
respondents are not even ‘somewhat satisfied’
with the hiring.
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Table- 2 : Mean scores of students assigned by corporate professionals on various skills
Skills Mean Score (Out of 5)
Flexibility 3.2
Technical Strength 3.1
Integrity 3.1
Willingness to learn 3.0
Planning & Org 3.0
Communication Skills 3.0
Leadership 3.0
Initiative taking 2.8
Problem Solving 2.8
Commitment 2.8
Self-Management 2.8
Analytical Decision making 2.7
Teamwork 2.7Jagan Institute of Management Studies

13. Data analysis - Linking academia and corporate
• positive correlation
• represents improvement in skills will positively impact the level of satisfaction from the knowledge of
students
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Table 3: Correlation between Skills & satisfaction level
Skills
Correlation between score on skill & satisfaction from knowledge of
PGDM/MBA
Technical Strength (TS) 0.52
Leadership (L) 0.42
Planning & Org (P&O) 0.31
Communication Skills (CSs) 0.24
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14. Data analysis - Linking academia and corporate
• Sensitivity analysis strengthens
the correlation analysis
• depicts that the value of
satisfaction from knowledge of
PGDM graduates (y axis)
increases with increasing mean
satisfaction scores of different
correlating factors.
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Figure 2: Sensitivity analysis of skills affecting satisfaction
X1 -Planning & Org (P&O)
X2 - Technical Skills (TS)
X3 - Communication Skills (CSs)
X4 - Leadership (L)
0.00
0.50
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
3.50
4.00
4.50
5.00
1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4 4.2 4.4 4.6 4.8 5
X1 X2 X3 X4
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15. Proposition of ACL enrichment concept
• From the analysis presented above, it is comprehensible that the corporate give prime importance to the
societal aspect of CSR.
• While almost each organization hires PGDM/MBA graduates, they scored them low on most of the skill sets.
• Thus there exists a gap between corporate and academia which needs to be bridged.
• It has also been recorded that the corporate is ready to take the onus of increasing students’ employability
thereby helping in bridging the gap.
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• appointing industry mentor
• organizing corporate workshops for students
• faculty employee exchange programs
• students to work on 2 selected jobs for 3 months each
• faculty involvement on real time industry projects
For bridging this gap, through our paper, certain techniques are proposed. These techniques include:
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16. Presence of proposed techniques
• Chart depicts that the presence of
proposed techniques in any form is less
than even 50%.
16
26.7
43.3
36.7
46.4
31.0
56.7
46.7
50.0
42.9
51.7
16.7
10.0
13.3
10.7
17.2
0.0
10.0
20.0
30.0
40.0
50.0
60.0
Appointing industry
mentor
Organizing Corp.
Workshops
Faculty
employee exchange
program
3-3 months
training
Faculty on
real time
industry projects
Exist Don’t Exist DKCS
Figure 3: Proportion of respondents admitting the presence of proposed
techniques of ACL enrichment through bar graph.
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17. Suitability of proposed techniques
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Table 4: Mean score of respondents on suitability of proposed techniques of enriching ACL out of 3
Proposed Techniques
Mean Score
(Out of 3)
Appointing full time industry mentor 2.0
Organizing Corporate workshop 2.5
Faculty employee exchange program 1.9
3-3 months training in 2 job profiles of choices 2.3
Involving faculty on real time industry projects 2.3
High suitability
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18. Challenges faced
• lack of time, manpower
and funds are the major
challenges faced by
corporate in adoption of
CSR
• the average amount of
time period spent in
training an employee is
2.36 months
• the level of student
knowledge will go up
there by reducing the
average training time
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24
11
6
14
6
1
39%
56%
66%
89%
98% 100%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
120%
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Lack of time Lack of funds Burdensome Lack of manpower Not mandatory Others
Figure 4: Cumulative effect of challenges through Pareto chart representation
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19. Conclusion and Recommendations
• The study shows strong intent of corporate towards adopting CSR and benefitting society.
• They also agree that it is the responsibility of the corporate to make students more employable.
• Thus the study shows that establishment of ACL is possible.
• However some challenges posed are : lack of time , money & manpower
• Trade off between time | manpower & money spent on training  resources deployed in enriching ACL
• The techniques to enrich ACL have been much appreciated and deemed suitable for corporate
implementation.
• The proposed techniques can thus be adopted by corporate as their CSR activities in order to create a
win-win situation for both corporate as well as academia
19Jagan Institute of Management Studies

20. The Shift
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The shift
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21. References
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the promotion paper for promotion to the degree of Doctor Branch - The Science of Management, sub-
branch -Educational Management, University of Latvia, 2007.
• L. P., Hartman, R. S. Rubin, and K. K. Dhanda, ―The communication of corporate social responsibility:
United States and European Union multinational corporations‖. Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 74, no.
28,pp. 373-389, 2007.
• M. Porter, and M. Kramer, ―Strategy & society: The link between competitive advantage and corporate
social responsibility, Harvard Business Review, vol. 84, no. 12, pp. 78-92, 2006.
• A. Carroll, ―The Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility Business Horizons, vol. 34, no. 5, pp. 39-48,
1991.
• Perez, A. and Bosque, D, R, Ignacio., 2014, How customers construct corporate social responsibility images:
Testing the moderating role of demographic characteristics, Business Research Quarterly.
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22. References
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awareness, Procedia-Social and behavioural sciences, vol. 58, pp. 1121 – 1130.
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Economics and Finance, vol. 11, pp. 60-67.
• Broomhill, Ray., 2007, Corporate social responsibility key issues and debates, Dustan paper.
• Hesselbarth C., and Schaltegger S., Educating change agents for sustainability- learning from the first
suitability management master of business administration.
• Dahlsrud A. 2008, How corporate social responsibility is defined, An analysis of 37 definitions, Corporate
Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, vol. 15, 1-15.
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