A Case against CSR Initiatives

There is fuzzy information in the existing body of knowledge regarding what CSR is. CSR initiatives require extensive resources and investment from the organizations and their shareholders. But, interest in implementing CSR initiatives in the contemporary business world is ever-growing. Business leaders cherish CSR initiatives, and consumers also expect business organizations to do more for the greater good of societies and communities. Then again, shareholders may not appreciate the idea of investing wealth and resources in CSR initiatives if CSR initiatives fail to be a proven tool or strategy to enhance financial or organizational performance. The purpose of this article is to investigate the scholarly arguments against CSR initiatives in operations so that business organizations and shareholders can make informed decisions if they should invest resources and wealth in CSR initiatives. In other words, the article explores why business organizations or shareholders should not employ CSR initiatives in their operations for the sustainability and profitability of the organizations. Based on the systematic literature review, the study found that CSR initiatives did not always negatively impact financial or organizational performance. CSR initiatives and financial or organizational performance also had a neutral, mixed, or favorable relationship. The literature review results imply that organizations with CSR initiatives have a greater chance of attaining enhanced financial or organizational performance than those without CSR initiatives. It recommends further research on what percentage of operating costs or marketing costs organizations should invest in CSR initiatives to generate break-even or enhanced financial or organizational performance.


Introduction
Business organizations can play significant roles in enhancing the economic or How to cite this paper: Kathayat, A. (2022).
On the other hand, there is another school of thought that opines companies should not invest their resources in any initiatives that will not support the shared objectives of the organizations while crafting, executing, or implementing strategies to gain competitive advantages in the market (Thompson et al., 2018).
Additionally, business organizations with or without CSR initiatives may experience a similar profit rate (McWilliams & Siegel, 2001;McWilliams et al., 2006).
In that case, why bother to take risks to waste shareholders' investment or the companies' valuable resources on CSR initiatives? Thus, there is contradictory knowledge in the existing literature about CSR and its potential impact on financial or organizational performance. In this regard, this paper has attempted to close or narrow down the gaps in the literature by making the case if the business organizations should or should not invest in CSR initiatives for higher performance. During the research, this study also has welcomed arguments from the opposite aisle so that debate can be fair, free from bias, or the author's attachment with the article's topic can have zero or negligible impact while concluding the study's findings. Thus, there are eight sections, including the introduction, data collection, discussion, and the limitations of the study in the paper. The study briefly investigates how CSR has been characterized by past scholars and identifies the disadvantages and advantages of CSR initiatives and their impact on business organizations. Finally, it concludes why business organizations should or should not invest in CSR priorities and provides a couple of tips on utilizing the companies' resources more thoughtfully to optimize their business performance. The study's main contribution is that it will provide readers, especially business leaders, organizations, and those who are curious, to explore if the investment in CSR initiatives is the right approach to enhance organizational performance. In addition, this study has recorded both scholarly views for and against CSR initiatives so that readers can make an educated decision while generating values for all stakeholders and optimizing the meaning of the investments.
The study's main limitation is that it entirely relies upon third-party data and past research in the field and the author's experience as a business professional and a concerned consumer-stakeholder.

Data Collection
The Discovery search engine and ProQuest through Columbia Southern University Online Library, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and Academia were the major databases searched to collect the relevant data from the existing literature in business administration and management especially regarding CSR. CSR is a rapidly growing field, and for higher relevancy and reliability of data collected, the study chose to select the peer-reviewed journals published between 2000 to 2022.
The major terms or phrases searched were "corporate social responsibility", "CSR", "CSR initiatives", "financial performance", "organizational performance" in the databases. The literature also included the views of prominent and earlier scholars, such as Berle (1931) and Dodd (1932), in CSR. The author retrieved the Berle (1931) and Dodd (1932) through the Columbia Southern University's Online Library (ProQuest) database. In addition, academic textbooks by Ferrell et al. (2018), Thompson et al. (2018), and a paper copy of Mason (1959) were obtained and reviewed. During the literature revision, one of the primary focuses was to include more recent findings on the impact of CSR on organization performance. Still, the comparative study felt pertinent to mention a few major earlier findings by past scholars simultaneously. After the revision of literature, those not related to the core topic of the paper were sorted out with titles, and only the relevant literature was filed in the same group.
2) CSR refers to "situations where the firm goes beyond compliance and engages in actions that appear to further some social good, beyond the interests of the firm and that which is required by law" (McWilliams et al., 2006: p. 1;McWilliams & Siegel, 2001).
3) CSR refers to "a commitment to improve community the well-being through  (1932) argued that "businesses are not just mere aggregate of stockholders" (p. 1160) and managers are "trustees for an institution rather than attorneys for the stockholders" (p. 1160). In other words, Dodd (1932) claimed that businesses are "social institutions and promoted for public interest concerns" (Dmytriyev et al., 2021(Dmytriyev et al., : p. 1443). But Berle's followers, including the Nobel Prize laureate Milton Friedman, strongly disagreed with that notion (Dmytriyev et al., 2021). Friedman (1970) put forward the idea that "only people have responsibilities, a corporation is an artificial person and may have artificial responsibilities" (para. 2 nd ). Friedman (1970) clarified the only social responsibility of a business was to grow its profits by optimum utilization of resources, with greater transparency, higher ethical standard, and within the boundary of laws. But Ramanna (2020) outright rejected Friedman (1970), perhaps in the light of today's "ruthless global market conditions" (Cosar et al., 2019(Cosar et al., : p. 1171, where some businesses do not hesitate to profit at the expense of others, including societies. Instead, Ramanna (2020) asserted, "the business of business is business, and so it should be" (p. 28).

Pros and Cons of CSR Initiatives
Though the environmental aspect of CSR in developing countries has not re-Open Journal of Business and Management ceived much attention (Ahmad et al., 2021) yet, the general idea of CSR is undoubtedly an ever-evolving and ever-growing business concept globally (Ahmad et al., 2021;Carroll & Shabana, 2010). But there are contradicting views on how business organizations benefit by practicing CSR in their daily transactions (Carroll & Shabana, 2010;Carroll, 2016;Tonello, 2011). Moreover, some may even debate that CSR is a costly business proposition (Ferrell et al., 2018).
In this section, this paper has highlighted several past research that claimed both disadvantages and advantages of CSR initiatives in the operations of business organizations. Tanimoto (2019) completed a systematic literature review of multi-stakeholder CSR initiatives (MSI). The study noticed that "not all CSR activities of companies are effective and functional", and "perfunctory responses, window dressing, and tokenism may be inevitable in CSR activities" (Tanimoto, 2019: p. 705). In addition, reporting on CSR initiatives may "lead to a lack of compatibility, as well as reliability and accuracy, of the data between companies (a matter of data integrity)" (p. 705). Tanimoto (2019) also notes that "company may have been disguising an excess debt caused by failure of business strategies like Toshiba with highly reputed governance system and CSR system" (p. 705). It means CSR initiatives, especially reporting, may become ineffective to avoid accounting fraud (Tanimoto, 2019). Furthermore, CSR initiatives cost resources, and "compliance would require considerable time and cost" (p. 708).

A Few Disadvantages of CSR Initiatives Reported in the Published Peer-Reviewed Journals
The study of international corporate governance systems, a company's engagement in CSR, and their cost of financing (both equity and debt) "reveals that the link between CSR performance and the cost of equity is negative in a shareholder-oriented system" (Desender et al., 2020: p. 207

A Few Advantages of CSR Initiatives Reported in the Published Peer-Reviewed Journals
Hmaittane et al (2019)  The study of international corporate governance systems, a company's engagement in CSR, and their cost of financing (both equity and debt) also "reveals that the link between CSR performance and cost of equity is positive in a stakeholder-oriented system. Furthermore, the link between CSR performance and the cost of debt is negative for firms that are close to default in both systems" (Desender et al., 2020: p. 207). Bacinello et al. (2020) retrieved data from 103 companies in Brazil to investigate the strategic influence of CSR's economic, social, and environmental dimensions on the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The study "indicated that SMEs could strategically use their resources and related capacities mainly for social and environmental issues, followed by the eco-

A. Kathayat Open Journal of Business and Management
nomic dimension of CSR, as an opportunity to create value and generate advantage competitive with rivals. Additionally, these three dimensions of CSR, with emphasis on the social aspect, can also provide better levels of business performance (BP) in SMEs compared to competitors" (Bacinello et al., 2020: p. 1).
The study from the banking industry in Egypt "finds that CSR implementation is positively reflected in profit efficiency, regardless of the strategic commitment to implementing CSR and bank size" (Ibrahim et  CSR and social performance (Margolis & Walsh, 2003). In other words, most CSR initiatives in those past research did establish positive performance and a positive relationship with organizational performance (Bozic et al., 2021). Liu et al.'s (2021) quantitative study completed in China reveals that "social responsibility has a positive impact on service identity, the perception of consensus of interests, and customer extra-role behavior. A good sense of social responsibility can build a close relationship between the platform and consumers.
In addition, the platform actively fulfilling its social responsibility can not only improve its functional value but also enhance its social value" (p. 10).

Discussion
Extending  Table 6-Review of research on the relationship between social responsibility and financial performance" in Barauskaite and Streimikiene (2021: p. 284 rect-business responsibilities to shareholders and to society" (Dmytriyev et al., 2021(Dmytriyev et al., , p. 1444).
Additionally, it will be unjust to measure the true impact of CSR investments and CSR initiatives by just measuring how much more money they can manage to bring home for shareholders the way some past literature had done.
The generous contributions in the current pandemic of COVID-19, drought in the African continent, and the recent hurricanes in North America are a few examples that reveal that business organizations can do and have been contributing effectively for the greater good of the global societies and sustainability.
The stakeholders from the societies and communities appreciate those contributions from the business organizations. Appreciation from the stakeholders should be one more measuring tool to measure Organizations' performance due to CSR initiatives. Such significant impact contributed by CSR initiatives of business organizations in the lives of millions and millions of people and societies worldwide can't be ignored while measuring the performance of organizations.

Limitations
The study included around 62% of the peer-reviewed journals published within the last three years.

Conclusion
Though this paper primarily focused on making the case against the CSR initiatives for greater profitability and sustainability, as promised at the beginning of the research, it left the door open for alternative views for the discussions. It learned that CSR initiatives could negatively, positively, or even neutrally impact organizations' operations during the research. Therefore, instead of prioritizing to create wealth or values for one specific stakeholder (shareholders only or only for communities/society), business organizations will be better off when they invest their resources to generate values for all stakeholders (Ferrell et al., 2018;Dmytriyev et al., 2021). But be mindful-"a multi-stakeholder initiative does not automatically ensure good performance" (Tanimoto, 2019: p. 713). It is a friendlier platform to enhance stakeholder participation in CSR initiatives and promote CSR standards at the workplace (Tanimoto, 2019). Though this study did not discover or contribute any new significant knowledge, its finding reinforced the existing body of knowledge in business administration and management, especially on CSR and the impact of CSR initiatives on organizational performance. This study will play an instrumental role to the readers, including business organizations and leaders, who can form an educated view on the significance of CSR investment and CSR initiatives in today's business world and the generation of the business world and human civilization that has yet to come.

Recommendations
The concept of CSR is still complex in 2022. Contemporary and future scholars have a lot to uncover to settle the argument on CSR that began centuries ago.
The scholars have not found a consensus around one specific definition of CSR, yet the good news is CSR can be considered as a "phenomenon" (Dahlsrud, 2008: p. 6). Hence, it is more significant "to understand how to manage the challenges within this phenomenon" (Dahlsrud, 2008: p. 6) to the business world.
Also, this study posits that business organizations may benefit by researching what percentage of the operating costs businesses should invest in CSR initiatives to protect the interest of shareholders while generously investing resources for the greater good in the societies/communities. Another option to optimize companies' resources is that business leaders may "identify their CSR activities and introduce into the marketing strategy" (Kim & Lee, 2019: p. 7). Thus, they may choose to evaluate the overall marketing strategies and investments in the marketing, or business leaders may separately appraise the impact of CSR with Open Journal of Business and Management the cost-benefit analysis (McWilliams & Seigel, 2001). Finally, the study encourages business organizations to craft CSR strategies that can defend the interests of all stakeholders and meet the expectations of the local and global community and society. Because an effective corporate strategy impacts the performance of business organizations (Omotayo et al., 2020;Thompson et al., 2018). As this debate on CSR initiatives relates to the world of business, can we not interpret the famous quote expressed by Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama in 1957 as "The business organizations' most persistent and urgent question is: What are they doing for all stakeholders?" The debate is still on.