Faculty of Commerce and Business Studies and Faculty of Management Studies conducted a Faculty Research Colloquium recently. The guest speaker for the colloquium was welcomed by Prof Nand Lal Dhamija.

The session was conducted by Prof S K Bedi who spoke on the topic ‘Economic Optimization of Corporate Social Responsibility’. Prof S K Bedi said that business and society are interdependent on each other. There are primary and secondary stakeholders. Primary stakeholders proximate to business and secondary stakeholders are Government, media, society at large and sometimes even the foreign societies. He added that optimization can be temporal, spatial, activity related or cost related.

Prof Bedi talked about CSR orientations. It can be pure compliance (strictly following 2% rule of Government), pure business orientation (company refers to its reputation and brand building) and philanthropy (giving money in large amount to help others). Focusing on one will leave the other, so balance has to be maintained somewhere between them. Company aims to convert every CSR activity into monetary equivalents. All profitable organizations have maintained equilibrium between society and CSR activities.

Prof Dhamija gave closing remarks and raised few research issues like stakeholders’ perception on CSR initiatives (stakeholders may belong to any of following category- investors, employees, suppliers, customers etc.), Impact of CSR initiatives on a company’s bottom line, assessment of effectiveness of CSR communication strategies etc.