The consequences of mandatory corporate social responsibility expenditure: An empirical evidence from India

Abstract The transition in governmental approach towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) from voluntary to mandatory has received much attention in the recent literature, mainly because the delegation of its role in social development has rarely been provided. In this context, the questions we raise are: Does mandatory CSR leads to higher expenditure? How does it affect business leaders' intrinsic motivation to spend on CSR? The case of India's section‐135 of Companies Act, 2013 shows that mandatory CSR has made companies more responsible by raising the level of CSR expenditure and positively affecting business leaders' intrinsic motivation to incur CSR expenditure. However, this gain has come at a cost as CSR expenditure has become more sensitive to profit, which is undesirable from society's perspective. The study uses instrumental theory and motivation‐crowding theory to explain the CSR behavior of NIFTY 100 companies from financial year 2009–2010 to 2018–2019. Overall, results of the present study suggest that government should prefer the approach of mandatory CSR with some precautions to instrumentalize the rising success of corporate sector for addressing the environmental and social issues in country.