University Social Responsibility and Educational Performance: Evidence from South Korea

In this article, we examine the relationship between university social responsibility (USR) and educational performance. For decades, universities as social organizations actively respond to environmental changes and adopt affirmative action programs that embody equality and diversity. In fact, a series of education policy reform has normatively shaped the relationships between states and universities that progressively incorporate social responsibility (i.e., affirmative action) in addition to research, teaching, and management. Moreover, we argue that USR has an increasingly positive influence on the educational performance of universities, by employing FGLS (feasible generalized least squares) regression on panel data for Korean universities (2008-2015). The findings suggest why universities and policymakers should further expand USR.