ارزیابی کارآمدی سیاست‌ها و مقررات مسئولیت اجتماعی بنگاه‌های اقتصادی در هدایت فعالیت‌های توسعه محلی و منطقه‌ای

Corporate social responsibility (CSR), as a mechanism for integrating social and environmental considerations into business operations, holds considerable potential for advancing local and regional development. However, its effectiveness depends on alignment with the real needs of communities, institutional coherence, and transparency in practice. In Iran, despite recent policy efforts to formalize this domain, a persistent gap remains between regulatory frameworks and on-the-ground performance. Adopting a qualitative approach and employing thematic analysis, this study evaluates the performance of economic enterprises in the field of CSR and examines the effectiveness of existing policies and regulations in steering CSR activities toward local development. Research data were collected and analyzed through a review of official documents and semi-structured interviews with 25 corporate managers, government officials, and local community representatives.
The findings reveal that CSR activities in Iran face multilayered challenges at cognitive, procedural, and structural levels. At the cognitive level, the foremost and most fundamental challenge is conceptual weakness and a flawed understanding of CSR, to the extent that a large proportion of senior managers equate CSR with charitable work and almsgiving, viewing it not as a developmental investment but as a legal compulsion to avoid penalties. This reductionist outlook is compounded by the absence of specialized CSR units in many enterprises and a general lack of awareness of its long-term benefits for the firm itself, including mitigating social risks and strengthening legitimacy. At the procedural level, four major challenges were identified. First is the misalignment between CSR projects and spatial planning documents and regional development plans; in the sense that most initiatives are designed without reference to comprehensive county-level plans and without an analysis of the relative advantages of each region, and their prioritization is driven more by managerial preferences and short-term pressures than by actual needs. Second is the lack of institutional integration and the fragmented implementation of initiatives; enterprises operating within the same geographical area act without coordination with one another, and their connection with local executive bodies—including governorates, district offices, and village councils—remains weak and disjointed, particularly when these bodies are excluded from the decision-making process. The third procedural challenge is the superficial engagement of local stakeholders and rightsholders in project definition; needs assessments are often perfunctory and non-participatory, local entrepreneurs and economic actors are not involved in designing interventions, and no formal mechanisms exist for receiving complaints and suggestions from the local population. Fourth is the excessive concentration on school construction, which, although generally perceived as a positive undertaking, is rooted in a charitable outlook and has led to the neglect of other vital areas such as productive employment, economic infrastructure, and livelihood enhancement.
At the structural level, the findings bring to light three fundamental challenges. First are the legal and structural constraints that limit the regulatory scope predominantly to state-owned enterprises, leaving large private-sector firms outside the purview of the regulations; moreover, budget inflexibility and prescriptive ceilings have precluded the reallocation of resources under emergency conditions. Second is the absence of independent oversight mechanisms, which has paved the way for symbolic practices and greenwashing, whereby certain enterprises use CSR projects to conceal environmental pollution or to burnish their organizational image, and, in the absence of independent evaluative bodies, reporting remains inflated and unverifiable. The third structural challenge is the lack of a long-term vision and sustainable planning, as a result of which CSR priorities shift with changes in management, and the absence of overarching policy documents and key performance indicators has pushed decision-making toward ad hoc and reactive approaches.
At a deeper layer, the findings expose an internal contradiction within existing policies that systematically undermines the shift toward development-oriented CSR. On the one hand, Clause 1 of Article 2 of the "CSR Regulation for State-Managed Companies" stipulates that the primary priority is "accepting responsibility for adverse impacts"—that is, negative responsibility. On the other hand, the clauses of Article 5, by prescribing mandatory quotas for school construction, effectively steer enterprises toward a form of compulsory charity. This contradiction has resulted in the marginalization of compensation for loss of life, financial damage, and livelihood harm caused by industrial activities, while positive charitable interventions are prioritized over negative responsibility—a situation that has upset the necessary balance between the corrective and developmental roles of CSR. Overall, this study demonstrates that as long as the prevailing understanding among executive bodies and enterprises remains confined to viewing CSR as "the performance of a stereotypical duty" rather than "the fulfillment of a strategic responsibility toward territorial development," the resources expended in this sphere will not lead to sustainable local and regional development.