**1. Introduction**

The discussion on Corporate Social Responsibility (hereafter CSR) got its root from Howard R. Bowen's 1953 first ever definitive book that initiated widespread discussion on the topic [1]. Bowen's revolutionary publication entitled "Social Responsibilities of the Businessman" provided welfare role of the business for the benefits of the society (Bowen, 1953 cited in [2]). The popularity of CSR is credited to landmark work of Bowen [3, 4]. The society bound role of business has been a matter under discussion since the start of second half of the 20th century [5].

The debate on business with its welfare role, attracted critiques. There is one and only responsibility of the business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase profits [6]. The contrary arguments triggered a greater debate and challenged the researchers to explore the CSR and its potential effects on the













**Table 1.**

business and the society. CSR provides strategic advantage to the firms and attracts investors [7, 8]. Carroll's pyramid of CSR provides four dimensions of the business responsibilities e.g., economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary [1, 9] and it is often referred to as Carroll's classical construct of CSR. The debate on CSR is still on being a contested topic among the researchers.

The research on practice of CSR and its philosophy is scarce in developing economies [10], it needs more attention by the scholars [11]. Existing contextual factors are important to be analyzed while studying CSR [12, 13] and the lack thereof may result in flawed understanding [14]. The stakeholders in the emerging economies have their own concerns and needs. Most of the emerging economies in Asia are suffering with poverty, inequalities, human right violations and social exploitations [12, 15] and CSR research should be aimed at highlighting core issues of the stakeholders [16, 17].

CSR has gained a significant importance in Pakistan in 1990s, after the malpractice of child labor in sports industry got international coverage [18]. CSR research in Pakistan, like other emerging economies is in initial stage. Ray [19] initiated CSR research in Pakistan by comparing child labor in Pakistan and Peru [20]. This review includes 65 empirical and exploratory studies published in different Pakistani and international journals from 2000 to 2021 and it is the first study of its kind highlighting CSR measurement and the related theoretical perspectives in Pakistan. Out of the reviewed articles as presented in the **Table 1**, fifty-nine studies (91 percent) have been published from 2011 to 2021, while only six studies (9 percent) were published in or before 2010. This shows an increasing interest in CSR by the researchers. We review the CSR literature in Pakistan according to the chronological order of the studies as done by Mathews [83] for social research.

Rest of the article is organized as follows. Second section contains in the tabular format, the previous CSR studies in Pakistan. Third section is devoted to critical discussion on studies related to corporate social and financial performance link and the studies on managerial and customers/stakeholder perceptions. The fourth section includes discussion on theories. Finally, the fifth section concludes with certain recommendations regarding future academic CSR research agenda in Pakistan.

#### **2. Critical discussion on the literature**

CSR research seems to be a decade and a half old academic research as it started effectively in 2006. The study by Ahmad [22] explored the managerial attitude towards CSR. The study by Ray [19] is an indication of malpractices of child labor and Thomsen [21] is a case study of suffering of the local community.

The literature has been reviewed with the deep emphasis on CSR constructs and theory. In the literature reviewed, there are twenty-six studies linking CSR and financial performance. Out of 26 studies, twenty-one (80 percent approx.) reported a positive relationship between CSR and financial performance (see [24, 27, 28, 36–39, 44, 46, 48, 50, 53, 57–61, 66, 67, 70, 78]) while only one (4 percent approx.) reported a negative relationship that is Iqbal et al. [30]. Two studies (8 percent) have reported both the positive and negative relationships. These are the studies by Javed et al. [34] and Arshad et al. [52]. Finally, two studies comprising (8 percent) by Siddiq and Javed [40] and Arshad et al. [49] have reported no relationship.

In the above-mentioned studies five studies have used perceived financial performance. These are the studies by Aga et al. [28]; Khan and Majid [36]; Qazi et al. [50]; Waheed and Yang [67] and Ikram et al. [70]. The study by Aga et al. [28] and Waheed and Yang [67] perceived sales growth and perceived sales performance,

respectively. The study by Ikram et al. [70] includes corporate reputation and employee's commitment along with financial performance. Further, four studies which have used perceived organizational performance instead of financial performance and reported positive relationships are by Malik et al. [45], Mukhtar [55], Hunjra et al. [79] and Yumei et al. [75].

The CSR and financial performance link have been thoroughly examined and proved in the existing literature [84, 85] and this has been frequently reported by the researchers in Pakistan. This may be attributed to the satisfaction of the stakeholders that pays off to the firms. On the other way around, there may be slack resources perspective as there is a worthy circle between CSR and financial performance [8, 57] meaning that both these constructs pay off each other. The true check for the acceptability of the relationship between CSR and financial performance needs attention in Pakistan. The operationalization of CSP and CFP is important in such relationships [85]. The measured value of CSR should contain the desired value of the variable. Moreover, the firms should be controlled for other determinants of profitability like size, sales growth, and age etc. The risk-leverage and industry affiliation should also be considered. A great number of the studies do not control the firms for other variables, especially in the earlier studies.

A large number of studies are based on managerial perceptions, customer's perceptions, employee's perceptions, and stakeholder's perceptions. The fourteen studies have used managerial perceptions to build the CSR construct. The study by Ahmad [22] reported that managerial perceptions are in the favor of stakeholders' welfare. The study by Ali et al. [24] (discussed above in CSR-FP link) reported a highly significant relationship between CSR and employee's commitment and then employees' commitment with financial performance. The study by Awan and Akhtar [43] assesses managerial point of view on CSR. The other four studies (discussed above in CSR-FP link) assess CSR by manager's interviews and link it with manager's perceived financial performance (see [28, 50, 67, 70]).

All of these studies reported a positive relationship between CSR and perceived financial performance. The study by Awan et al. [32] builds CSR construct on the index ranging 0–100 by getting responses from managerial level employees. The study finds the social performance score of the organizations. The study by Hunjra et al. [79] relates culture and religiosity with firm performance. The other studies seeking managerial perceptions for CSR are by Shahzad et al. [74]; Ali et al., [86]; and by Yasir et al. [81] etc.

Nine studies include customers rated CSR through questionnaires and interviews. These studies try to find the corporate reputation and purchase intentions of the customers through an inquiry about CSR engaged firms. The important studies are by Ali [26]; Kamran et al. [29]; Naqvi et al. [33]; Khan et al. [35]; Khan et al. [41]; Saleem and Gopinath [47]; Butt [54]; and Chen et al. [63]. The CSR activities are positively related to corporate reputation, purchase intentions, brand image and customer loyalty. The positive purchase intentions of customers reveal the prevalence of customers' preferences for socially responsible firms. The study by Ahmad et al. [71] reveals that CSR efforts of the firms promotes the citizenship behavior of customers.

Some of the studies (discussed above in CSR-FP and CSR-Org performance link) which use employees' perceptions regarding CSR through questionnaires are by Khan and Majid [36]; Malik et al. [45]; Mukhtar [55]. The study by Khan and Majid [36] reported a positive relationship among CSR dimensions and profitability. The other two reported a positive relationship between CSR and organizational performance. The other studies building CSR construct on employee's perceptions are by Hongdao et al. [64]; Zulfiqar et al. [68]; Farrukh et al. [69]; and Khaskheli et al. [72] etc.

These studies obtain the perception of social performance. Getting actual social performance could provide better results. In the studies obtaining perceptive CSR should be based on in-depth interviews of managers and other stakeholders so that a pragmatic inquiry could be made. The CSR construct based on this mode of inquiry will contribute towards healthy literature and in turn will prove useful in corporate enlightenment.

Five of the studies which relate corporate governance and CSR disclosure are by Sharif and Rashid [15]; Majeed et al. [51]; Lone et al. [56]; Azam et al. [62]; and Khan et al. [65]. The first three studies build their CSR constructs on the seven categories i.e., health, education, disasters, donations, employees, environment and products and services. Disclosure index is built by using contents of the annual reports. The study by Azam et al. [62] uses corporate donations as CSR measure and the study by Khan et al. [77] builds their CSR constructs on some promising grounds by considering the quality of CSR disclosure. The work by Nazir et al. [25]; Tausif [31] and Zaighum et al. [80] are the case studies, assessing the level of CSR in companies. Furthermore, the study by Makki and Lodhi [23] investigated the determinants of corporate philanthropy. Finally, the work by Memon et al. [42] tried to find out the development of CSR as an academic discipline in Pakistan.

The studies by Thomsen [21] and Ray [19] assess the effect of malpractices of the firms. Ray [19] analyzed the child labor in sports industry and Thomsen [21] studied the miserable condition of local community due to hazards of highly toxic polluted water emitted by the Tannery industry.

Most of the studies are based on content analyses. The validity of the content analysis relies on the coding scheme adapted by the researchers [87]. The comprehensive CSR index lacks in the studies. The content analyses based on comprehensive evaluation would fill the gap of measurement. A moderate number of the studies use philanthropy as an explicit CSR construct. CSR is to be analyzed beyond philanthropy as there are stakeholders who need to be addressed at large. The fair treatment of labor forces and health and safety conditions of the working environment is often questioned in Pakistan. Firms should be analyzed in the context of their real contribution towards wellbeing of stakeholders at large like employees, community, customers and environment.

In the studies analyzed, few studies have used theoretical perspective. Only six of the studies have used explicit theoretical perspectives in CSR scholarship which are by Khan and Majid [36]; Sharif and Rashid [15]; Malik and Kanwal [61]; Syed and Butt [60]; Khan et al. [65]; and Waheed and Yang [67]. The studies by Zulfiqar et al. [68] and Ali et al. [86] have used social identity theory as depicted in the **Table 2** below. The studies by Majeed et al. [51]; Butt and Butt [57] and

