Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting Practices: An Analysis of Pharma Companies in Gujarat

Abstract

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Obligatory requirements have been prescribed in the social, environmental, and governance domains, to ensure that corporate behaviour is not harmful to the societies in which they operate. Consequently, both corporate social responsibility (CSR) and CSR reporting have attracted the growing attention of researchers, as evidenced by increased publications and media attention. However, no specific study has been conducted that evaluates CSR disclosures by pharma companies in Gujarat; and it is not known whether the CSR disclosures by pharma companies are affected by parameters such as revenue, assets turnover, CSR committee size, CSR head, price earnings ratio, and so on. The present paper fills this research gap. The present paper studies the CSR reporting practices of the pharma companies based in Gujarat and ranks them based on their reporting and disclosure practices. Mann-Whitney U test results find that there is no significant difference in CSR disclosures of the sample companies based on identified variables, except the price earnings ratio (PER). Further, the CSR disclosure by pharma companies is still in its infancy and lacks the rigour and quality that it should possess, despite the growing expenditure on CSR activities as mandated by the Companies Act, 2013.

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR Reporting and Disclosures, Pharma Companies, Mann-Whitney U Test

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