Analysis of the Dimensions of Corporate Social Responsibility: Study Applied to Co-operativism in Ecuador

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) involves activities carried out by businesses based on the principles of transparency, ethical, moral and environmental values. Despite the growing interest in this area of study, there is no universally recognised definition, which, in turn, affects the measuring of these activities. The aim of this research is to analyse the dimensions of CSR, through a valid and trustworthy measuring scale of co-operativism in Ecuador. The research questionnaire was developed from the theoretical analysis of the construct and it was given to 2042 individuals, among them managers, employees and members of Ecuadorian co-operatives. In order to determine and evaluate the factorial structure, convergent validity and to discriminate the measuring scale, an exploratory and confirmatory factorial analysis was conducted with covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM). The results show that the suggested scale is reliable and consistent with the pursued goals. In this sense, and in relation to the viability of the factorial analysis performed, 86.2% of the correlations have a score greater than 0.3. Because of this, it can be confirmed that CSR can be measured in the four dimensions analysed: Economic, Legal, Ethical and Philanthropic.