The approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR) has changed through years from the philanthropy to the self-regulatory and to the present multi-stakeholder approach. In India, the CSR mandate has been looked and projected as a game changer and is expected to revolutionise CSR beyond the lens of defensive CSR, promotional CSR and charitable CSR to the next-level paradigm of strategic CSR. It is in this context an attempt has been made to discuss the CSR approach of public- and private-sector companies in India. The article makes an analysis of the CSR vision and mission statements, expenditure, areas of interventions and initiatives, CSR policy framework and reporting among public and private companies in India. The article is based on the secondary data for a period of four years (2011–2015) and gives a representative view of the companies making difference to the Indian society at large. The article intends to answer whether revolutionising CSR as a mandate is an attempt in the right direction.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.