Corporate Social Responsibility in Malaysian Organisations: Community Environmental Dimensions and Islamic Perspective

Islamic organizations have the upmost responsibility to ensure that their business operations comply with Shariah principles. However, their approaches to positive actions through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) have been varied because of inadequate guidance on the initiatives based on Islamic principles. Despite that CSR has been widely researched and is considered by most as a compulsory practice to be competitive, the current framework for CSR does not incorporate the Shariah principle to explain corporate involvement in social and environmental activities for Islamic organizations. Therefore, utilizing the Islamic CSR framework (i-CSR), this paper explores the current state of CSR initiatives and the motives for stakeholder engagement specifically from the environmental community dimension within Malaysian Islamic organizations. Semi-structured interviews with ten personnel from five Islamic organizations were conducted face to face at the field site. Data analyzed using NVivo software reveals that these organizations have embraced social responsibility beyond its business purpose. The CSR activities are in line with the Shariah principle and are influenced by multiple motivations. The results suggest the importance of an appropriate CSR framework and if adopted, it can be an important element of the overall governance and accountability framework of an Islamic organization.