Impact of corporate social responsibility practices on organizational performance: an ISO 26000 perspective

This study aims to provide reliable and valid constructs of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and a measurement instrument in the context of Iranian organizations based on the seven core subjects of International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 26000 standard. It also examines the effects of these seven CSR criteria, namely, organizational governance, human rights, labor practices, the environment, fair operating practices, consumer issues and community involvement, and development on the organizational performance of Iranian organizations.

Through an extensive study of literature review, the related items of these core subjects were identified. Data for the study were collected from 207 Iranian manufacturing and service firms. The research model was tested using structural equation modeling.

Statistical analysis revealed that a number of significant relationships between CSR practices and organizational performance of Iranian organizations. The result found that community involvement and development plays an important role in enhancing organizational performance of organizations.

First, the time sequence of the association between the variables could not be concluded, given that cross-sectional data were used. A future study is suggested to conduct a longitudinal research design to present the evidence of causation which cannot be achieved through cross-sectional designs. Second, this study was limited to Iran. Hence, the findings and conclusions drawn from this research are representative of the Iranian context only. Hence, final results should be considered with caution.

This study offers a number of implications for Iranian managers and policy-makers. First, this study identified that there is a relationship between CSR practices based on the seven core subjects of ISO 26000 and firm performance in the context of Iran. Second, the instrument developed, in this research, will be very useful to policy-makers in various industries of Iran as a tool for evaluating the effectiveness of their current CSR practices and initiatives. Third, decision-makers can also prioritize the CSR practices on which their firms should focus to improve their organizational performance.

The novelty of this research is to determine the related items of the core subjects of ISO 26000 as the main factors and offer an instrument to measure the effects of various CSR practices on organizational performance of Iranian firms in the context of Iran.