Corporate Social Responsibility Investment by Public Sector Organisations: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has gained prominence in business studies due to the increasing awareness of its importance to firms and stakeholders. Unlike previous CSR studies, which mostly focused on private sector organizations, this study systematically reviews CSR investment by public sector organizations. The objectives include identifying empirically tested CSR dimensions, theories mostly applied in public sector organization CSR studies, theories mostly applied, the industries in which CSR-public sector studies were conducted, and areas suggested for further studies. Findings reveal that social and legal CSR dimensions were the most single-focused dimensions in CSR-public sector studies, with limited attention to economic or environmental CSR as a single dimension. However, social and environmental dimensions rank highly in terms of combined dimensions. The findings also indicate that 78% of the reviewed empirical studies adopted stakeholder theory to explain CSR investment by public sector organizations. On industrial focuses, 54% of the reviewed studies focused on more than one industry. It was also revealed that the manufacturing industry was the most investigated, while water and construction were among the least investigated sectors. Further research was suggested in understanding the impact of CSR investment on firm performance, factors influence CSR investment, use of large sample size, use of different industries and geographical areas, and the trend on CSR investment by organizations. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by establishing research gaps for future CSR investment studies in public sector organisations.