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Establishing a corporate social responsibility implementation model for promoting sustainability in the food sector: a hybrid approach of expert mining and ISM–MICMAC

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Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is significantly related to food companies due to its prominent impact and greater dependency on the environment, economy, and society (triple bottom line — TBL). The CSR-related threats and opportunities’ scale are shifting from single companies to networks and supply chains of the food sector. In this regard, this study empirically evaluates CSR initiatives by using Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) and Matrice d’Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliqués à un Classement (MICMAC) methodology. So to develop an ISM–MICMAC-based framework, at first, CSR initiatives were chosen from existing literature with experts’ advice. Later, MICMAC analysis results showed that “employee trainings and workshops” and “employee welfare and empowerment” are significant CSR initiatives that could help CSR’s integration in the food sector of Pakistan, whereas CSR initiatives “community betterment” and “contribution towards economic development” proved least significant in the model. This study recommends that food sector firms should promote employee-based strategies in the firms. Moreover, the empirical findings of this study help to better understand CSR initiatives and their role in the implementation of CSR in the food sector of developing countries.

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Acknowledgements

Our research team is grateful to Ms. Stefania Ascarelli for professionally correcting the English of this manuscript, diligent proofreading, and suggesting improvements in style and structure.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, People’s Republic of China

    Muhammad Shahjahan Usmani, Jianling Wang & Muhammad Ismail

  2. School of Management, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, People’s Republic of China

    Naveed Ahmad

  3. Department of Business Administration, Lahore Leads University, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan

    Naveed Ahmad & Zia Ullah

  4. College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China

    Muzaffar Iqbal

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  1. Muhammad Shahjahan Usmani
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  2. Jianling Wang
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  5. Muzaffar Iqbal
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Contributions

Muhmaad Shahjahan Usmani: formal analysis, writing — original draft. Jianling Wang: supervision and project administration. Naveed Ahmad: visualization, reviewing, preparing the final draft, and formatting. Zia Ullah: investigation, validation, and writing — review and editing. Muzaffar Iqbal and Muhammad Ismail: conceptualization and methodology.

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Correspondence to Jianling Wang or Naveed Ahmad.

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Appendix

Appendix

Table 1 Major attributes of the triple bottom line
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Table 2 TBL-based criteria of initiatives derived from the literature review
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Table 3 SSIM
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Table 4 Initial reachability matrix
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Table 5 Final reachability matrix
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Table 6 Level partitions (level 1)
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Table 7 Level partitions (level 2)
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Table 8 Level partitions (level 3)
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Table 9 Level partitions (level 4)
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Table 10 Level partitions (level 5)
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Table 11 Levels of CSR initiatives in ISM model
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Usmani, .S., Wang, J., Ahmad, N. et al. Establishing a corporate social responsibility implementation model for promoting sustainability in the food sector: a hybrid approach of expert mining and ISM–MICMAC. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 8851–8872 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-16111-7

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