Exploring Relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility Practices and Utilitarian Ethical Orientation from Sri Lankan Entrepreneurs’ Perspective

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is governed by moral concerns and thereby working with ethics in a business by the entrepreneurs are seen as very important as such practices define how society ought to function. This study explores the corporate social responsibility practices and the utilitarian ethical orientation from entrepreneurs‟ perspective. The purpose of this paper is to explore the corporate responsibility related business practices of entrepreneurs in terms of utilitarian ethical orientation. Entrepreneurial orientation was captured through four variables. Interpretive mixed method was applied to capture the holistic nature of interaction between corporate social responsibility and utilitarian ethical Orientation. Three hundred entrepreneurs called for the survey, and ten entrepreneurs were interviewed. Results reveal that the confused entrepreneur is struggling to understand how to practice ethics in a complex context while there are a few scattered individual efforts of practicing corporate responsibility which promotes social service by a few large organizations as a trendy behavior.