Good governance has always been the object of anyone interested in the proper management of their organization, including their dealings with all their publics, particularly their students and parents, alumni, their employees, and the communities around them. For schools, on the main, this has meant providing scholarships and grants-in-aid for their faculty, staff and deserving students, philanthropy for various causes, and for many, a willingness to respond to situations which require their assistance or intervention.
An organized process of taking care of all their publics, which should somehow also redound to some benefit to their bottom line, but particularly involvement in projects and activities which go beyond their immediate area — this is the kind of CSR which we all hope to have, where likely out of our values and hopefully something more, we have decided that “doing good” is not only something we wish to do, but which was likely why our respective schools were started by their founders in the first place.
Now, there are norms and approaches which are available which can assist us do all these not only in a viable way, but in ways which are verifiable, and which become part and parcel of our organized, daily way of conducting our work.
CSR Research
Documenting all these various approaches, relying in more than just anecdotal evidence, finding out how to structure the ways of assessing how we have done in our CSR activities, and talking to the many from the corporate and NGO world who have much experience in CSR – – – all lead to the conclusion that “Research in CSR” is something that is truly timely and important.