Corporate Social Responsibility: Business Responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic

Abstract

The global health, economic, and social impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic are growing day by day. Over the past few months, first China, and now the whole world has been grappling with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in businesses, employees, customers, communities, and each other. The people worldwide are strongly committed to working together and supporting each other in every way possible during this critical period filled with fear and uncertainty. Grounded on stakeholder theory and corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature, the study attempts to explore business responses to the COVID-19 pandemic to support its vital stakeholders such as employees, customers, communities, and society as a whole through CSR initiatives. The study based on the contemporary phenomenon considered multi-items as data sources such as press releases, newsletters, and letters to shareholders, which were retrieved from the top 25 (the sample) corporations of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens-2019 (the population) in the United States’ respective websites on the internet. The outcomes of this research report that sampled companies show respect to their employees and focus on stewardship relations between corporations and customers and communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will have a significant theoretical application and practical implication on business duty to society and future research on CSR as a strong arm to deal with a critical disaster like the COVID-19 pandemic.