Assessment of Corporate Social Responsibility: The Case of Manufacturing Companies in Gurage Zone, Ethiopia

Abstract

The overall objective of this study is to assess the practice of corporate social responsibility in the case of manufacturing companies in Gurage Zone. The data analysis was conducted based on 176 employees from sample manufacturing companies. Parametric (SPSS Version 20) and non parametric test (Friedman test) to test the concern of companies in Corporate Social Responsibility implementation towards environment, customer, community, employee, ethical & legal were conducted for analysis. Regarding the factors affects the implementation of corporation social responsibility (71.1%), (64.5%) and (61.2%) of the respondents agreed that government, awareness and media are the factors that can affect the implementation of CSR respectively. The majority, (67.8%) of the respondents said that the organization didn’t encourage employees to develop real skills and long term careers (via Performance Appraisal and Training & Development. The result shows that responsibility of the firms towards environment (55.3%) of the respondents disagree, (46.7%) of the respondents argue positively, (59.2%) of the respondents disagree, the majority of respondents (60.5%) disagree, (46.1%) of the respondents agree, majority of the respondents (62.5%) disagree about the participation of the firms in west reduction, recycling, energy conservation, reduction of water consumption, use environmentally friendly packaging, air pollutant respectively. Therefore, it recommended that the firms should set the direction and scope over the long term with regard to CSR, allowing them to be successful by using their resources within their unique environment to meet market needs and fulfill stakeholder expectations. It is therefore vitally important that the firms should have to design a good CSR strategy that is related with that of their business strategy.