TRACING THE DRIVERS BEHIND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY THROUGH THE LENS OF A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Purpose: This paper attempts to review and synthesize the literature on the drivers of CSR in a systematic manner to identify the growth trends, the most influential authors, articles of this area of research coupled with tracing the geographic regions/countries that dominate publication on the theme, collating a citation score in order to identify the most cited papers in the domain and developing a timeline for thematic development of research in the domain. Research Design: The study used a well -documented Systematic literature review procedure suggested by Tran field, Denver and Smart (2003). Two databases namely Scopus and web of science were identified for reviewing papers for the study. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta -Analysis (PRISMA) was used to extract 1920 papers and on refinement 144 papers were identified for full screening and finally 101 papers are reviewed for drawing conclusions and publication metrics. Findings: In the light of the evolution of the CSR, the systematic literature review concluded that although there are many factors driving CSR, managerial perceptions and values, top management commitments, presence of CSR/sustainability committee, branding, reputation management, stakeholders' pressure, competitive advantage, regulatory forces, were observed to be the major drivers of CSR. Originality: Through a comprehensive study of existing literature, the study has culminated into the identification of ten broad categories of drivers behind CSR commitments and developed a timeline of progress of this concept over a period of time ranging from philanthropy to stakeholders' pressures to more recently, sustainability r at