A systemic framework to define sustainable and measurable corporate social initiatives: Leveraging Corporate Core Competence for a better society

Companies globally are expected to discharge their stakeholder responsibilities and societal obligations, along with their shareholder-wealth maximization goal. While this is a sustainable intent for the whole ecosystem, it leads us to the question of whether there is a way to determine if the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policy is viable. A CSR initiative is treated by most organizations as philanthropic or as meeting compliance norms of the corporate which may lead to ill formulated or short lived obligatory initiatives. This paper proposes a systemic framework to define sustainable CSR initiatives. It is based on three key concepts Ashby's Variety Matching Concept, Stakeholder Need analyses and tracing CSR Objectives to social outcomes. It facilitates matching societal stakeholder needs with corporate core competence applying Ashby's variety matching concept. It further proposes a framework to trace the CSR Objectives to Social outcomes. The stakeholder analyses model facilitates identification of sustainable stakeholder initiatives taking into account the core competence of the corporate, and its constraints. The measurement framework captures the objectives of these initiatives and traces them to outcomes leading to a sustainable social change. This ensures a win-win situation for the corporate and the society because the model is based on leveraging the core competence of the corporate in order to meet the needs of societal stakeholders. The model is captured through the case of a large IT organization where technology is leveraged to address a major societal concern.