Instrument Development and Application in

Corporate Social Responsibility

K e n n e t h Aupperle, Kent S t a t e University
J o h n D . Hatfield, University of Georgia
Archie B. Carroll, University of Georgia

determination of socially responsible firms was

ABSTRAGT
based upon a journalist's judgment.

Holmes (1977) sought to assess past and present

The research had two objectives. First, an instru-
areas of social commitment. She asked executives
ment is developed using Carroll's four-part corpor-
to rank a list of social activities and the degree
ate social responsibility model. Second, the
to which they had established written goals/
instrument is used to test the model among a sample
policies in CSR areas. Alexander and Buchholz
of executives in national firms. The results of
(1978) studied CSR and stock market performance
the study support the model in two ways: in terms using the same CSR measurements as Vance (1975).
of components comprising the model and their rela- Abbott and Monsen (1979) developed a corporate
tive magnitude. social involvement disclosure scale based on a con-
tent analysis of companies' annual reports. Fry,
Keim and Meiners (1982) used corporate contribu-
INTRODUCTION
tions as a measure of one aspect of firms' CSR.
More details regarding some of these and other
reported studies can be found in Arlow and Gannon
Though there has been an enormous body of litera-
(1982).
ture emerging around the concept of corporate
social responsibility (CSR), actual empirical
What is particularly striking about the research
research designed to test the multitude of defini-
cited and other studies examined is that in no
tions, propositions, concepts and theories has
case found did the researchers use a definition of
been scarce. This is partially due to the large
CSR that had appeared in the literature. In no
number of perspectives on viewing the CSR notion,
case did the researchers identify a definition or
thus resulting in no generally accepted defini-
concept of CSR that had appeared in the literature
tions. It is also due to the difficulty in devel-
and operationalize it. This is especially sur-
oping valid measures of CSR. Indeed, the vagaries
prising given the multitude of CSR definitions or
involved in assessing CSR are substantial in com-
concepts that have appeared in the academic liter-
parison to the assessment of economic and
ature over the last several decades. A sampling
financial performance.
of these definitions or concepts that have been
promulgated include those by Bowen (1953) , Davis
Nevertheless, the idea that business organizations
(1960), Eells and Walton (1961), Friedman (1962),
embrace a responsibility beyond the economic has
McGuire (1963), Manne and Wallich (1972), Steiner ,
been demonstrated time and again. In a study of
(1975), Preston and Post (1975), Sethi (1975),
the largest firms in the U.S., for example, Shetty
Frederick (1978), and Carroll (1979).
(1979) found that social responsibility, as a
corporate goal, ranked fourth in a list of fifteen,
The present paper attempts to do what other
behind only profitability, growth and market share.
research has generally not pursued: develop a
Consequently, the importance of doing research on
social performance measurement instrument based
CSR and, more importantly, developing valid meas-
upon a definition or model of CSR that has ap-
ures of CSR is evident.
peared in the literature. It would have been
ideal if there had been a definitional construct
The empirical research on CSR has tended to be
that had universal acceptance. However, this was
without focus. Researchers have studied a number
not the case in the CSR literature. An alterna-
of different issues using a number of different
tive was to identify a conceptualization that had
methodologies. It is instructive to note the most
gained some acceptance by virtue of its having
frequent methods of assessing a firm's CSR orien-
been published in a reputable journal. This was
tation or social performance. Bowman and Haire
the course taken in the present study. It was
(1975) sought to study the relationship between
felt here that a useful definition or conceptual
CSR and profitability using the percent of prose
model to test by way of instrument development was
(number of lines) in companies' annual reports as
that offered by Carroll (1979). While the Carroll
their CSR measure. Vance (1975) was also inter-
conceptualization was not revolutionary, it was
ested in CSR vs. profitability. He used ratings
fairly comprehensive and addressed the relative
by students and executives as his CSR measure.
importance of economic versus social concerns
Ostlund (1977) was interested in managers' general
which is a most important issue in the CSR
attitudes toward CSR. He employed a proposition-
literature and debate.
inventory combined with a Likert scale. Sturdi-
vant and Ginter (1977) conducted a CSR attitude
The purposes of the research effort were twofold.
survey of executives. They used attitude proposi-
First, an instrument would be developed using the
tions toward socially sensitive issues combined
four part CSR model presented by Carroll. Second,
with a-6-point agree-disagree format. Their
the instrument would be used to test the model;

369
that is, to determine whether executives surveyed
from national firms verified the relative impor-
tance of the model's components in the manner in
which they were proposed. An important outcome of
the effort was to be a refined instrument for CSR
measurement.
The Carroll Construct
The definitional model offered by Carroll is com-
prehensive. As portrayed in Figure 1, an entire
range of responsibilities or obligations is iden-
tified. The four components which comprise the
model include concerns that are: economic, legal,
ethical, and discretionary in nature.
Figure 1
A Corporation's Total Social ResponsibilUies (Carroll, 1979, p. 499)
Discretionary
Responsibilities
Ethical
Responsibilities
Legal
Responsibilities
Economic
Responsibilities
The four components are defined as follows: the
economic responsibilities of business reflect the
belief that business has an obligation to be pro-
ductive and profitable and meet the consuming needs
of society. The legal responsibilities of business
indicate a concern that economic responsibilities
are approached within the confines of written law.
The ethical responsibilities of business reflect
the unwritten codes, norms, and values implicitly
derived from society and as such, go beyond the
mere legal frameworks and are capable of being
strongly held as well as being nebulous and ambig-
uously stated. The discretionary (voluntary)
responsibilities of business are volitional or
philanthropic in nature and as such are also diffi-
cult to judge and ascertain.
The model in Figure 1 suggests not only four gener-
al CSR categories, but also categories which
represent different relative weights. The relative
weight of each category is indicative, in a general
sense, of how CSR is defined at a given point in
time. Since the major objective of this study was
essential to employ a construct such as this. The
Carroll construct provided the flexibility neces-
sary to empirically capture the CSR orientation of
business organizations.
By using the Carroll construct, it was possible
both to assess the CSR perspectives of major corpo-
rations as well as test the basic construct to see
if, in fact, four CSR components actually existed
and, if so, whether the weighted proportions were
370
depicted as shown in Figure 1. Much of the concern
was then in testing the Carroll construct.
The Social Desirability Problem
Using the definitional model in Figure 1 required
developing an instrument that assessed each of the
four CSR components. Yet it was apparent, at least
in regard to CSR, respondents could not simply be
asked to rate the importance of each component to
their firm. Social desirability bias was probable
because of the attractiveness of each component to
respondents. It was extremely likely that all the
components would tend to be regarded as highly
important if, for example, a Likert scale were used
in the instrument. This problem was resolved by
using a forced-choice questionnaire format.
The questionnaire was designed so that each re-
spondent would respond to 80 items through 20 sets
of four forced-choice statements. The four state-
ments in each set corresponded with the four compo-
nents in Carroll's model. The basic procedure
permitted respondents to allocate up to 10 points
to each set of four statements. This made it pos-
sible to measure the relative importance of each
CSR statement in the set. The directions provided
on the final questionnaire form were as follows:
Based on their relative importance and application
to your firm, allocate up to, but not more than,
10 points to each set of four statements. For
example, you might allocate points to a set of
statements as follows:
A = 4 A = 1 A = 0
B = 3 B = 2 B = 4
C = 2 or C = 0 or C = C etc.
D = 1 D = 7 D = 0
Total = 10 points Total = 10 points Total = 7 pts.
Item Selection
The selection of CSR statements required considera-
tion of both validity and reliability issues. Of
great importance in this study was the issue of
item representativeness. Content validity was pre-
sumed to exist if impartial experts were able to
agree that the test or instrument items were repre-
sentative of the universe the tester was trying to
measure. Some of these universe of content are
easier to assess than others, but in all cases
sample items need to be examined to ascertain true
representativeness. However, as Kerlinger (1973)
observes, in the final analysis, content validity
is essentially a judgmental process.
The first concern was in providing complete cover-
age. In developing the questionnaire items, an
exhaustive list of representative statements for
the non-economic components was drawn from five
recent studies. Each study contained a list of CSR
statements or categories to which executives were
asked to respond. The basic procedure was to use
only those items or statements that were typically
viewed as most important in terms of organizational
commitment or involvement. In other words, only
the more commonly accepted CSR statements were
used. For example, in examining 192 large firms.
Holmes (1977) generated a list of 14 CSR items and
asked the executives to identify the top five in
terms of their importance to their firms. From the
Holmes study, only the top seven CSR statements
were selected for use in forming questionnaire
statements for this study. This approach was also
used with the other four studies: Corson and
Steiner (1975), Eilbirt and Parket (1973), Ostlund
(1977) and Plauszek (1976).
A number of items generated from the five studies
required further screening because many of the CSR
items were industry specific. For instance. Holmes
(1977) discovered pollution abatement to be more of
a concern of the manufacturing industries and the
oil and gas industries than of financiall-oriented
industries. It seemed apparent that certain indus-
tries had unique features which presented different
CSR problems. Consequently, the questionnaire was
designed in such a way that it included only those
CSR items which could apply to all firms in
general. The items used in the questionnaire were
broad in design in order to avoid a nonresponse or
inappropriate response from firms in industries to
which the CSR item had little relevance.
The items selected to represent the economic per-
formance component were drawn from the performance
measures typically found in corporate Scoreboard
sections of Business Week and Forbes. These meas-
ures were also commonly refereed to in well-estab-
lished managerial finance texts. The economic
performance statements that were developed helped
compose the initial list of 117 statements to be
considered for use in the instrument.
The next step to ensure content validity was to
use a blind panel of judges. The role of the panel
was to ascertain:
1. Whether the 117 statements corresponded proper-
ly to the four CSR components.
2. Whether the final 80-item questionnaire could
discriminate between the noneconomic components
and the economic components (or a concern for
society versus a concern for profitability).
3. If each statement was balanced properly in
relation to the other statements within an item
set. It was important that the items in each
set were perceived to be of approximately
equal weight or value.
The panel for the blind judge review was composed
of six faculty members and Ph.D. students at a
large Southeastern university. Each panel member
acted independently from the others. The criter-
ion for inclusion on the panel was demonstrated
expertise and interest in either CSR or strategic
management.
The six judges individually classified the 117 CSR
statements that had been generated into one of
Carroll's four CSR components. Once this was per-
formed, the classification of the statements was
examined. The degree of consensus for the 117
statements is displayed in Table 1.
High congruence was deemed to exist when five or
six of the judges agreed on a given statement.
From the 117 initial statements, 78 can be seen
from Table 1 to fit this condition. Consequently,
the questionnaire was partially constructed from
these 78 statements. However, since 80 statements
371
TABLE I
Panel's Degree o f Consensus f o r the 117 CSK Statemnts
Consensus
Six Panel More Panel
CSR C(»ponents neuters
EconoBlc 27 26 26
27 20 22
Et^iui 31 15 29
Diicretionary X 17 25
Total 117 102
were needed for the questionnaire, some exceptions
were made for those statements on which only four
judges agreed. The ethical and discretionary CSR
categories demonstrated the most discriminating
difficulties. There was a tendency for some con-
vergence between these two CSR components. That
this might occur had been implied by Carroll (1979)
when defining these components.
The panel also classified the 117 CSR statements
into one of the two more broadly defined dimensions
of a "concern for' society," consisting of the three
noneconomic components (legal, ethical, discretion-
ary) and a "concern for economic performance,"
which represented the economic component. The
panel had little difficulty discriminating between
these two dimensions.
Once the 117 CSR statements had been screened on
their ability to discriminate, a pool of usable
statements was created for each CSR category.
From these four pools the instrument was con-
structed. In some cases, a statement was used in
more than one of the 20 CSR sets. While this was
a rare occurrence, it resulted from the paucity of
availability statements for one of the CSR compo-
nents or from the need for sufficient balance
between the statements in a given set.
After thef instrument was developed from the inven-
tory of usable statements, three of the panel
members were asked to assess whether the state-
ments in each set were approximately of equal
weight or desirability. For instance, strongly
worded statements were not intentionally matched
with other more weakly worded statements in the
same set.
Table 2 contains three of the 20 CSR sets. These
three examples show that the CSR sets consist of
four statements, each corresponding to a CSR
category. The ordering of the CSR statements rep-
resenting the four categories was random in order
to reduce response bias. The questionnaire was
designed so that every item in a four cell set
would be given a value relative to the other items
in the same set.
Reliability
To test reliability, the 20-set instrument was
adminsitered to 158 undergraduate students en-
rolled in a business policy course. Students com-
pleted the questionnaire by placing themselves in
the role of a corporate CEO. The actual purpose
of the questionnaire was not discussed with the
students until after all questionnaires were
completed.
Internal consistency of the instrument was then
assessed using Cronbach's alpha (Guilford, 1954).
 TABLE 2 participating returns and a second follow-up
Sample Sets from the Na1n Instrument obtained an additional 32 participating returns.
The three mailings thus brought 245 participating
returns, representing a response rate of 30%.
CSR
Because four responses were completely unusable,
I. It Is Important to perform In a manner consistent only 241 responses (29.5%) were used in the data
HUh: analyses. Four firms responded late, while 42
econonic) A. expectations of corporate stockholders. more indicated they did not wish to participate in
legal) 8. expectations of government and the law.
discretionary) C. the philanthropic and charitable expectations of the survey. As a result, the total number of
society. responding firms was 291 or 35.5%.
(ethical) 0. expectations of societal mores and ethical
norms.
9. It 1s Important to;
(discretionary) A. provide assistance to private and public ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
educational Institutions.
(economic) 6. pursue Investments solely on their ability to
enhance profitability.
(legal) C. provide goods and services that are legally safe
and sound. To test the discriminant validity of the instrument
(ethical) D. advertise goods and services In an ethically
fair and responsible manner. as reflecting Carroll's four-part CSR model, factor
analyses were performed on the 80 items allocated
IS. It is Important that good corporate citizenship be
defined as: to the 20 CSR sets. The first analysis was an N-
(legal) A. doing what the law expects. factor, principal factor analysis with varimax
(discretionary) B. providing voluntary assistance to charities and rotation. Twenty-two factors with eigenvalues
commjnity organizations.
(ethical) C. doing what is expected morally and ethically. greater than 1.0 were identified. A scree test
(econoinic) D. being as profitable as possible. pointed to clear breaks between factors three and
four and between factors four and five. Because it
was essentially unclear whether the "break"
Alphas for each of the CSR categories were as fol-
occurred between factors three and four or factors
lows: Economic = .93, Legal = .84, Ethical = .84,
four and five, two further analyses were performed.
and Discretionary = .87. With all the CSR categor-
ies reflecting coefficients of .83 or better, it
was concluded that the categories demonstrated A four-factor, principal factor analysis using
internal consistency. varimax rotation produced no clear results. Only
four of the 80 statements clearly loaded on the
Instrument Mailing fourth factor. Also, the first factor contained
loadings that represented both economic and ethical
The final instrument included the 20 sets of four CSR components. It tentatively appeared that two
CSR items and other questions which pertained to CSR constructs were represented by one factor.
both CSR and strategic management. This instru-
ment was sent to the 818 chief executive officers The factor loadings of the 80 statements on the
(CEOs) listed in Forbes' 1981 Annual 500s Direc- three factors are presented in Table 3. Dominant
tory. The first mailing generated 157 participat- loadings on each factor are underlined. Fifty-
ing returns. A follow-up mailing produced 56 nine of the 80 statements had loadings greater than

Three-Factor Factor Anal

TEM FACTOR 1 FACTOR 2 FACTOR 3

ITEM FACTOt 1 FACTOR 2 FACTOR 3
1 (econ) -.25 -.35 -.29 ^^ (econ)
-.01 -.31 -.36 -.58
2 (legal) .52 -.04
42 (legal) .07 .59 -.14
3 (dlecr) .45 .04 -.13 ^J (ethical) .26 .16 .34
4 (ethical) .03 -.oa .45
5 (econ) -.39 -.22
^^ (dlecr) .09 -.07 .3a
-.42 (S (dlecr) .63 -.11
6 (legel) .32 -.03
.25 .10
7 (dlicr) .54 .01
46 (ethical) .2t .oa .66
.16 -.10 -.'06
a (ethical) -.03 .09 .44
47(legal) .6a
-.21 4a(econ) -.44 -.45 -.34
9 (legal) .11 -.11 .66
10 (econ) -.16 -.22 -.25
49 (dlacr) -.03 -.03
11 (dlecr) -.00
50 (econ) -.43 -.43 -.49
.21
12 (ethlcel) 51 (legal) -.07 .59 .17
13 (econ)
.TT .19 .30
52(ethical) .13 -.00 •14
-.17 -.45 -.56
14 (dlacr) 53(ethical) .31 .06
•a -.05 .09
54 (legel) -.02 .55 .00
15 (legal) .04 •a .03
U (ethical) -.12 .67
55 (econ) -.4a -.41 -.4a
.04 56 (dlacr) .47 -.03 .25
17 (athlcal) .01 -.01 .53
U (legal) 57(l«8al) -.07 -.04
19 (dlacr)
.oa .66 -a 00 5a (dlecr) .4a .^i -.03
•il -.14 a OB
20 (econ) -.26
59 (ethical) -.10 -.oa .55
-.43 -.42
21 (dlecr) .57 -.oa -.04
50 (econ) -.la -.27 -.44
61(legel) -.14 .31
22 (econ)
23 (ethlcel)
-.36
.11
-.45
.14
-.43
.62
52(ethical) .27 .06 .n
.50
24 (legel) -.00 .63
53(econ) -.31 -.40 -.57
.12 54(dlacr) .32 .15
25 (legal) -.11 .27 .17
.06
2i (econ) -.21 .56 .00 .21
-.27 55 (legal)
27 (dlecr) -.14 .07
•ii -.02 ,"l3
2a (ethical) -.06
5, (ethical) .01 -.oJT .35
.03 .46
29 (econ) -.31
5g(econ) -.29 -.31 -.46
-.44 -.41
X (legal) -.oa 55(econ) -.2a -.2a -.5?
-.04 ,„(dlacr) .2a .01 .20
31 (dlacr) -.16 .26 71(legal)
J2 (ethlcel) .11 -.02 .14
.09
33 (dlecr)
34 (econ)
.47
-.36
-.07
-.23
-M
-a 37
,2 (ethical)
73(ethUal)
.13
-.03
-!o4
-.12
.53
.4a
35 (legal) -.05 74 (legal) .07 .50 -,"23
.31
36 (ethical) .12 .10 ,45 75 (econ) -.25 -.33 -.49
37 (econ) -.37 -.31
76 (dlecr) .23 -.03 .3a
)a (legal) .23 '•rg 77(dlacr) .59 -.13 .12
39 (dlecr) .45 *I0 7a(legal) -.14 .40 .22
40 (ethlcel) .04 .oa .61
79 (econ) -.32 -.35
SO(ethical) -.01 .04

372
.40 on one of the three factors. These items were
unevenly distributed among the four CSR constructs
as follows: Economic—11 items. Legal—15 items.
Ethical—17 items, and Discretionary—16 items.
Examination of the factor loadings show that two
of the four CSR components were represented in
factor three—the economic component had highly
negative loadings, while the ethical component had
strong positive loadings. With factor one and two
clearly relfecting the discretionary and legal
components, it was possible to conclude that there
were, in fact, four CSR components represented
within the three factors.
Using these 59 items, unweighted scale scores were
computed for each of the four components. Coeffi-
cients of internal consistency (alpha) for each
component were: Economic = .90, Legal = .86,
Ethical = .87, and Discretionary = .84. Zero order
correlations among the component scale scores are
contained in Table 4. As would be expected from
the factor structure, the strongest correlation
(.r_ = .71) is between the economic and ethical
components. In fact, the economic component corre-
lates negatively with all three of its noneconomic
counterparts. Generally, then, the analysis sup-
ports the existence of four clear, but related
CSR components.
lntercorreUtions Among the Four CSR Components
(N . 241)
1
1. Economic
2. Legal -.48"*
3. Ethical -.71"* .13*
t. Discretionary -.47*** .04
*p < .05
**p < .01
***p < .001
As indicated earlier, Carroll (1979) assigned
relative (but nonnumeric) weights to each of the
four CSR components, reflecting their relative
magnitude as aspects of corporate social respon-
sibilities. To provide a rather crude test of
Carroll's weightings, mean scores for each of the
four components were computed. Table 5 contains
these means. Their relative sizes reflect
Carroll's weightings fairly accurately, being
comparable in magnitude and declining from economic
to discretionary.
DISCUSSION
One purpose of this study was to test Carroll's
(1979) conceptual model of corporate social
responsibility. The results support the model in
two ways. First, it does appear that there are
four empirically interrelated, but conceptually
independent components of CSR. The content valid-
ity studies reported here show that "experts" have
little difficulty distinguishing among the four
when sorting written statements reflecting each
component. A test of discriminant validity for an
TABLE 5
Reljtive CSR Weight:
(N . 241)
(Residual) .44
Oiscretionary 1.30
2.22
Legal 2.54
Economic 3 50
NOTE: A residual exists because respondents were not required to
allocate all ten points to the four statement CSR sets.
instrument developed to reflect the components
clearly identified these components, at least for
59 of the 80 statements used in the study. Two
separate studies verified the internal consistency
of each component as a reflection of CSR
responsibilities.
Second, the results give tentative support to the
relative weightings Carroll earlier assigned to
each of the four components. Although the mean
s
scores used to empirically assess these weightings
were rather crude indicators, their relative
magnitude and order confirm that, at least for 241
active CEO's, Carroll's weightings are close
.25** approximations. Interestingly, while the respon-
dents clearly placed more emphasis on the economic
component, taken together, the noneconomic compo-
nent means (6.06) are much higher than the mean
(3.50) for the economic component alone.
As an outcome of this study, the 59 CSR statements
that loaded clearly on their respective CSR factors
have been reordered on a 15-item, 60-statement
instrument. (This instrument can be obtained from
the first author.) Future studies might use this
instrument to assess its convergence with other
means of assessing CSR. Also, data on the other
factors might be gathered in conjunction with
responses to this instrument to assess relation-
ships between CSR emphases and other organizational
factors.
Obviously, this study did not determine whether
only four CSR components exist.- Yet, its results
lend support to the existence of four predicted
components, each capable of being reliably and
validly measured.
REFERENCES
References are available upon request.
373