The IT giant, Microsoft topped the Reputation Institute Global CSR Rep Trak 100 study after beating Google and Disney company.

The IT giant gave away more than $900m in cash and software to nonprofits worldwide last year, reduced its carbon emissions by 30 per cent per unit and made several investments in the HR department which was recorded as the companies biggest ever investment in overall employee compensation, as per the citizens report.

The question now arises, was all this investment worth it? well, Off course! alot of companies, especially in the IT industries, tries to attract more consumers and investors by performing various kinds of CSR activities in the community. It was recorded that the other top 100 companies which made it to the “Reputation Institute Global CSR Rep Trak” spent about $50 million a year on average on CSR activities, however, the message was not being heard by the consumers and investors. More than half (55-61 per cent) of consumers are neutral or not sure if those companies can be trusted to be good corporate citizens, behave ethically nor are appealing places to work that treat their employees well. maybe because of this ranking, Microsoft will be able to attract more consumers and attract more amount of investors, investing in the company. To a certain extent, doing various kinds of CSR activities is beneficial for the society as it gives away potential welfare gain (Positive Externality) to the society, but at the same time, different stakeholders may have different perspective about practicing CSR activities. This is majorly due to stakeholders such as the investors, does not care about the society and just focuses on making more and more profits, however, stakeholders such as the government and consumers will actually want to see these companies are producing their goods or service “Ethically”. This is rather a matter of judgment and perspective.

However, at this point of time, we finally have a reason to say that Microsoft is doing better than any other IT firms.