Managing obligations to society. Case of best ranked universities in social responsibility

Abstract

Abstract. Universities have always been engines for the economy, in multiple roles

Predictors of Reputation Through University Social Responsibility Practices in a Malaysian Private University: The Customer’s Perspective

“…In addition, Păunescu, Găucă and Drăgan (2017) highlighted that the determinants used to assess the social responsibility of universities included community development, social works in the community, human capital development, environmental concern which yielded the almost similar results with the current findings. This coincides with the findings of Ismail, Alias and Mohd Rasdi (2015) that the education-related CSR activities are the prominent factor in community development.…”

“…In the highly competitive environment, there is a growing interest of social responsibility in higher education institutions (HEIs) industry (Christensen, Thrane, Jørgensen & Lehmann, 2009). Social responsibility initiatives in the HEIs have gained attention as universities continued to focus on world ranking platforms and dynamic transformation (Păunescu, Drăgan & Găucă, 2017), where it has set a new trend in the HEIs towards the CSR initiatives is crucial in improving corporate reputation (Srindar & Ganesan, 2016;Yusuff, Mustaffa & Mohamad, 2017;Pérez, Martínez & Del Bosque, 2013).…”

Examining obligations to society for QS Stars best ranked universities in social responsibility

“…With the new competition that is faster increasing, universities themselves had to invest more in building connections with the communities, promoting a more caring social image, and supplying constantly added value to all their stakeholders (Boyle and Silver, 2005;Păunescu et al, 2017). Formal collaborations between businesses, community groups and universities to promote economic and social development have increased substantially over the last decade.…”

“…Therefore, engagement from a university's perspective translates into everything that is important for the community: from change of mentalities, attitudes and ways in which things are done, up to knowledge creation or skills development through collaboration between the social, economic and academic actors. University community engagement comes Unauthenticated Download Date | 5/13/18 2:02 AM through the students, academic faculties and other partner institutions as a whole and takes various forms, like solutions, information, knowledge, research, feedback, technical assistance and support (Bernardo, 2012;Păunescu et al, 2017). No real social problem can be solved or even understood without academia and community working together.…”

“…This leads us to the observation that a high ranking in social responsibility is positively correlated with a high ranking in employability and a good ranking in Unauthenticated Download Date | 5/13/18 2:02 AM inclusiveness, but not of the same tie. Moreover, there is a weak positive correlation between ranking in social responsibility and overall ranking of universities, which means that other criteria have a stronger contribution to the universities rating in the global ranking (Daraio et al, 2015;Păunescu et al, 2017).…”