An Investigation on corporate social responsibility of construction organisations in disaster in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a concept, which is broadly determined as ensuring the efficacy of the organisation in integrating social and environmental considerations into organisational operations. In Sri Lankan context, a great enthusiasm can be seen among organisations to engage in CSR initiatives. Having considered the importance and impact, the study aims to investigate the importance of CSR initiatives by construction organisations in disasters in Sri Lanka. Thus, a mixed method research approach was followed as the methodology of this study. Findings are based on semi-structured interviews held with construction industry professionals. Findings of this study revealed that the implementation of CSR initiatives is more important during a disaster situation in the aspects of both affected party and aiding party. Moreover, construction organisations implement CSR during disaster situations by considering it as a mandatory responsibility of an organisation. Further, most of the construction organisations engage in CSR implementation during natural disaster situations. In practice all the construction organisations tend to engage in reactive initiatives. More importantly, it is revealed that both the organisational work force and society are benefitted through CSR implementation in disaster situations.