India's Consumer's Perception of Corporate Social Responsibility

“An Empirical Study of Indian Consumer’s Perception of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)”
Introduction
In the area of consumer perception and response towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) increasingly received attention from the managers and researchers. Most of the research was conducted in context of developed countries that means research on consumer perception towards CSR in developing countries like India needs to be developed. This research will examine consumer perception of CSR in India. This research will be produced mixed results suggesting that CSR is still the concept waiting to be applied in India. Indian Consumers are often unaware and unsupportive towards CSR. This is an opposite finding of consumer perception in the developed countries where most of the consumers are willing to support CSR launched by corporations. This research will also address the issue when consumers have to buy similar products with the same price and quality, CSR could be the determining factor.
Review of Literature
Research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) is started in 1930s. Berle and Means (1948); Carroll (1991) advocated to incorporate voting rights for greater accountability and transparency for all shareholders. Nowadays, CSR receives attention from researchers and managers in the area of consumer perception and the response of CSR Smith (2003); Bhattacharya and Sen (2004); Beckmann (2007).
Beckmann (2007) mentioned in his research on consumer perception and response towards CSR and suggested that there is a positive relationships between a company’s CSR activity and consumers’ reactions to that company and its product. Most of this research was conducted in developed countries e.g. Brown and Dacin (1997); Creyer ...

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...earch in the area of consumer perception and the response of CSR. Most of the research have been conducted in context of developed countries hence research on consumer perception towards CSR in developing countries like India needs to be developed. The scope of the research is to study the macro and micro level of CSR and distinct forms of CSR in India. At macro-level, I will look at what really formed for willingness or unwillingness to support CSR in India and at micro-level, I will look at how consumers of different income levels perceive companies CSR efforts.
The research findings are applicable to a large extent for managerial decisions. There is a huge research scope available in this area as only a limited research has been done in this field. This research work and future researches in this field would be helpful for managers, students and academicians.