CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY TOWARDS EMPLOYEES AND BUSINESS PERFORMANCE OF SUGAR MANUFACTURING FIRMS IN KENYA

Abstract

This paper presents some empirical findings on the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) towardsemployees on the performance of sugar manufacturing firms in Kenya. Using a sample of two hundred and fortyfive employees from sugar manufacturing firms (n= 245), the paper examined the effect of employee orientedactivities (provision of housing for employees, work safety arrangements, insurance of workers and motivationschemes).The specific objective of this study was to determine the effect of practicing employee oriented activitieson the performance of sugar manufacturing firms over the years 2008 to 2012. The study employed descriptivecausal survey research design. The study targeted a total of 2450 employees. A sample size consisted of 245employees. The 245 employees were selected through simple random while purposive sampling techniques wasused to select the 10 NGOs, 15 departmental heads and 5 members of NEMA. Given a large number of employees,questionnaires were used to collect information from the employees of sugar firms while interview schedules wereappropriate in collecting information from the managers and NGO employees. On reliability of the instruments,they attained an alpha of 0.826, comparing to the acceptable Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient of at least 0.7 in nonclinicalresearch, implied that the instruments were reliable. The findings of the research was that there is apositive statistically significant linear correlation between practicing employee oriented activities and businessperformance of sugar manufacturing firms in Kenya. On the basis of these findings, it is recommended thatmanagers, investors of sugar manufacturing firms as well as the interested parties in sugar firms should proactivelyparticipate in employee oriented activities since it has a positive significance towards the performance of sugarfirms.