Higher education institutions and corporate social responsibility: triple bottomline as a conceptual framework for community development

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is predicated on three organizational pillars of economic values, social values and environment values known as the "triple bottom-line". This framework refers to an accomplishment of a win-win status quo amongst three units. Stakeholders within the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) somehow have ways of enforcing organizations to comply with these triple bottom-line. However, profit making is not applicable to a considerable extent in (HEIs) funded by government, but accountability is of paramount importance. On the other hand, HEIs are facing challenges induced by labour market dynamics. This article is a based on the triple bottom line conceptual paradigm and reviews CSR and the importance of the paradigm for HEIs in community development for developing countries, using South Africa as a reference point. We relied on existing literature and our analysis suggest that HEIs need to take part in profitable relations with several stakeholders while integrating their visions and purposes into their CSR management agenda. For the reason that the structure of the community is somewhat complex because of diverse personalities with different levels of resource control; adopting CSR would benefit, appropriate integration of community development programmes.. Engagement through CSR will enhance mutual trust, reduce protest and help improve public image of the HEIs. Particular emphasis on HEIs support to economic welfare and social environs would be a value addition to community development.

Universities’ Social Responsibility through the Lens of Strategic Planning: A Content Analysis

“…This paper contributes to the growth of the academic literature on the emerging topic of SR in public sector organizations (Dentchev et al 2018;Dumay et al 2010;Kappo-Abidemi and Ogujiuba 2020;Navarro-Galera et al 2014;Vázquez and Lanero 2016). Specifically, we investigated the implementation of SR in universities' medium-long-term planning processes, applying the content analysis technique to a selected sample of 20 strategic plans issued by public large and mega Italian universities.…”

“…To date, academic literature analyzing the implementation of SR practices in public sector organizations is still scarce (Dentchev et al 2018;Dumay et al 2010;Kappo-Abidemi and Ogujiuba 2020;Navarro-Galera et al 2014;Vázquez and Lanero 2016) and much less discussed than in the private sector (del Mar Alonso-Almeida et al 2015).…”

University social responsibility and sustainable development: illustration of adapted practices by two Tunisian Universities

“…The concrete application of this concept by means of USR, therefore, suffers intrinsically from a lack of clarification of the objectives to be pursued or prioritized (Campobasso et al, 2022;Agustina et al, 2023;Nardo et al, 2021;Kappo-Abidemi and Ogujiuba, 2020).…”

“…This absence of an in-depth exploration impedes not only scholarly progress but also practical action (Agustina et al , 2023). Furthermore, Nardo et al (2021), Kappo-Abidemi and Ogujiuba (2020), Dentchev et al (2018) and del Mar Alonso-Almeida et al (2015) revealed that the social responsibility (SR) practices implementation in the public sector is still limited and much less discussed than in the private sector.…”

Ranking the Performance of Universities: The Role of Sustainability

“…This point is especially relevant if we recognize the importance of rankings in providing information to stakeholders and as a force for promoting specific university policies [1]. In this sense, in a context in which concern about climate change is growing, universities must lead the process of change required by society [15][16][17]. Therefore, it seems reasonable to incorporate the measurement of environmental performance as a criterion in the elaboration of the rankings.…”