Establishing a corporate social responsibility implementation model for promoting sustainability in the food sector: a hybrid approach of expert mining and ISM–MICMAC

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is significantly related to food companies due to its prominent impact and greater dependency on the environment, economy, and society (triple bottom line — TBL). The CSR-related threats and opportunities’ scale are shifting from single companies to networks and supply chains of the food sector. In this regard, this study empirically evaluates CSR initiatives by using Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) and Matrice d’Impacts Croisés Multiplication Appliqués à un Classement (MICMAC) methodology. So to develop an ISM–MICMAC-based framework, at first, CSR initiatives were chosen from existing literature with experts’ advice. Later, MICMAC analysis results showed that “employee trainings and workshops” and “employee welfare and empowerment” are significant CSR initiatives that could help CSR’s integration in the food sector of Pakistan, whereas CSR initiatives “community betterment” and “contribution towards economic development” proved least significant in the model. This study recommends that food sector firms should promote employee-based strategies in the firms. Moreover, the empirical findings of this study help to better understand CSR initiatives and their role in the implementation of CSR in the food sector of developing countries.