Towards a latin american definition of university social responsibility. Approximation to the conceptual preferences of university students

Abstract

University Social Responsibility (USR) is a new university management policy that redefines the traditional scope and projection of social solidarity, introducing a global care approach for both administrative and academic impact in all university processes. USR demands to be transversely included by all university members in their everyday activities, it is imperative for them to understand what it is about so they are willing to become co-responsible in their day to day activities. This study begins to respond to the question: To what extent has the Latin American university community understood this new paradigm? This is an exploratory-descriptive type research with a quantitative approach making use of the survey technique which was administered to a sample of 740 participants (students, faculty, office personnel and principals) from 17 universities in seven Latin American countries; in order to grasp how university actors conceive USR, by selecting one of five given definitions. Results indicate several tendencies: first, the strictly assistance approach has diminished among the university community; secondly, preferences point directly to the participation perspective in local, regional and national development alongside with other actors and an approach derived from the ISO 26000 standard, which defines Social Responsibility as a management procedure of the organizational impact. It is concluded that this concept of impact management has already been introduced to the mind of the university community and it is overcoming the reductive vision of the social commitment only assumed from the voluntary engagement perspective, left aside from the academic and research curricula. Therefore, it is an invitation to construct a Latin American definition of USR based on the participation of territorial development and the management of administrative and academic impact.