It is known that CSR on a global specter is a new thought process which evolved after issues of sustainability came in full force to challenge the thinking of externalities not significantly impacting the environment and well being of citizens. However, the world as we live in, has detrimental effect on the greed of profit maximizing corporations, whose inherent nature are to serve themselves and grow even at the cost to the society. With increased knowledge backed by scientific data, we have begun to see that a corporation with its profit maximizing motive has a short-to-medium term vision at best and, therefore, in an effort to ensure a balanced and ecologically sustainable growth CSR is needed for humanity in which all organizations need to take part, grow and create employment for societal development.

In this evolved thought process, the role of Bangladeshi corporation has negligible impact globally; however, with the growth of Bangladesh local corporations will ultimately open shop at other destinations and move towards a multinational organization. On the NGO area, BRAC is slowly turning from a large NGO in Bangladesh to a global NGO head-quartered in Bangladesh. With size and scope, many cross-cutting issues come into play that helps the maturing process for an organization. These new global waves are relentless; keeping sustainability issues in mind, organizations must shed its old thinking process and embrace the new precepts for the welfare of society and the organization itself.

Globally, some corporations have their own flavor of CSR activities that have not been scrutinized or challenged.  At IITM, we want to reap significant knowledge by undertaking sector studies on CSR in Bangladesh.

With global reach and global power comes global responsibility it is an important statement that speaks heavily of social equity, which contradicts the inherent nature of profit maximizing corporations. The new term for global responsibility is CSR. The beginnings of CSR were the result of corporations trying to stay competitive on a global scale. Corporations, by their inherent structures are profit maximizing organizations; their total orientation and management philosophy works to promote this profit maximization focus based on a reward structure within their various departments and operative decisions; corporations have introduced financial greed without thinking about the macro-perspective of how their actions affect the environment and related stakeholders. CSR is relatively new and gained acceptability in the late 80s and early 90s in the United States when the US corporations were facing insurmountable challenges from Japanese corporations that ran on different management psychology, giving preference to humane elements over cost-benefit decisions. Product competitiveness was no longer the driving force in managing successful organizations. Transitioning management styles and new business practices were needed to counter the global successes of non US entities. Philanthropy was a phenomenon that had been a part of the growth of business in the United States; historically, major contributions by corporations had been made to catalyze the growth during and after the industrial revolution. However, US corporations needed an edge to return to a competitive platform; philanthropy was given a business dimension that allowed the corporations to tout their social commitment and receive acclaim from the public who started buying their wares and services, making direct impact on commercial performance.

Bangladesh can learn from CSR initiatives globally and customize CSR by introducing socio-economic variability while designing an ‘actionable’ program. CSR practices within the corporations may actually open doors to greater economic prospects.