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) towards employees on the performance of sugar manufacturing firms in Kenya. Using a sample of two hundred and forty five employees from sugar manufacturing firms (n= 245), the paper examined the effect of employee oriented activities (provision of housing for employees, work safety arrangements, insurance of workers and motivation schemes).The specific objective of this study was to determine the effect of practicing employee oriented activities on the performance of sugar manufacturing firms over the years 2008 to 2012. The study employed descriptive causal survey research design. The study targeted a total of 2450 employees. A sample size consisted of 245 employees. The 245 employees were selected through simple random while purposive sampling techniques was used 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 were appropriate 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 nonclinical research, implied that the instruments were reliable. The findings of the research was that there is a positive statistically significant linear correlation between practicing employee oriented activities and business performance of sugar manufacturing firms in Kenya. On the basis of these findings, it is recommended that managers, investors of sugar manufacturing firms as well as the interested parties in sugar firms should proactively participate in employee oriented activities since it has a positive significance towards the performance of sugar firms.