Community development through university social responsibility: precursors and outcomes

Since the funding of higher education has shifted from public to private modes, universities have adopted business models to finance their operations. On the one hand, social responsibility initiatives help universities attract and retain students. On the other hand, it plays a significant role in the development of society as a whole by enhancing institutional capacity and character building of students. Using social influence theory, we examined the mediating effect of university social responsibility in the relationship between precursors and outcomes using a multi-wave data from 359 university students. The results demonstrate that university social responsibility mediates between precursors (education on environmental values, education on social values, and internal management) and outcomes (student engagement and social behavior). This study contributes to the literature by providing an underlying mechanism suggesting that environmental values, educational social values, and internal management as precursors that produce positive effects on students’ outcomes (engagement and social behavior).