The Impact of Regulations and Technology on Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosures – Evidence from Maharatna Central Public Sector Enterprises in India

Information technology (IT), being an effective fount for all types of business policies, is useful for executing any firm's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. IT has advanced tools and applications to execute the business plans very effectively which can leave the lasting footprints on the society, and also be helpful in increasing profits, enhancing the workplace, creating transformations for the disabled employees, creating educational opportunities that can bridge the digital divide, improving the business ethics and helping the society. CSR has become an integral part of the organizations which are involving all their stakeholders as beneficiaries and India is the first country to have the mandated CSR regulations. The present study has made an attempt to study the impact of CSR Regulations and technology on the CSR disclosures of the Indian Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) having Maharatna Status. For this purpose, Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure Index (CSRDI) developed by Charumathi & Padmaja, 2015 was adopted for measuring the level of CSR disclosure and Corporate Information and Communication Technology Usage Index (CICTI) was developed and used to measure the level of IT usage. This study used secondary data. Using manual content analysis, the required data for (a) CSR Disclosures were collected from the annual reports of Maharatna companies and (b) CICT usage were collected from the web portals, recruitment portals, social media, news articles, CSR news by Maharatna companies and other digital sources. The sample for the study includes seven Maharatna CPSEs and the period of the study is six years ranging from 2011-12 to 2016-17. Using paired t test, it is found that there is a significant difference in CSR disclosures during pre and post-regulatory periods. CSR disclosures of Maharatna companies significantly increased post-CSR regulatory period. Using multiple regression analysis, it is found that there is a positive and significant relationship between the ICT usage and the CSR disclosures of Maharatna companies.