Abstract
The risky activities in which engineering companies take part highlight the need for companies to be socially responsible towards their stakeholders, while being able to measure these initiatives. The lack of a single definition of corporate social responsibility has added to the confusion of providing clear and unprejudiced measures of corporate social responsibility. One such method of impact measurement is by using evaluation indicators which are not all used by engineering companies.
This research aims to identify which indicators derived from literature should be used by companies in their corporate social responsibility disclosures. Thereafter, a proposed method of impact measurement should be derived from these indicators. To achieve this aim, secondary data sources in the form of financial and non-financial reports publicly disclosed by South African engineering companies participating in corporate social responsibility were used to account for present evaluation indicators. Content analysis of these reports was used to evaluate corporate social responsibility indicators and verify what had been theorised from the literature review.
In general, philanthropic evaluation indicators were the most widely recorded by the companies sampled. The second most recorded indicators belonged to the ethical dimension, followed by indicators in the legal dimension. Lastly, economic indicators were the least mentioned type of indicator. Deeper analysis was also conducted to determine how corporate social responsibility was perceived by companies in the manufacturing, mining and construction industries. The results showed that companies in the manufacturing industry recorded more indicators, followed by companies in the mining industry and then the construction industry.
The contribution of this research to the current body of knowledge is two-fold. First, it offers a preliminary assessment of the corporate social responsibility practices of South African companies in relation to the identified indicators. The second benefit is that it offers an industry standard that other companies in engineering may use to evaluate their corporate social responsibility impact.
KEYWORDS: Corporate social responsibility impact, Evaluation indicators, South African engineering companies, Manufacturing, mining and construction industries, Environmental, social and governance.