Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

@article{192748,
        author = {Muzakkir Al Nizami},
        title = {Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) In Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Barriers in Implementing It in Organizations},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {12},
        number = {9},
        pages = {3211-3221},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=192748},
        abstract = {Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has moved from the traditional focus of economic sense of responsibility (profit maximization) as a major concern towards legal, moral and ethical norms and social accountability to society. The evolution of CSR practices varies across countries, affected by regulatory structures, culture, and the era of CSR adoption depending on the legal landscape adopted. This paper explores CSR approaches in Saudi Arabia through the qualitative research methodology of face-to-face and virtual interviews with official authorities, public firms, and private firms in Saudi Arabia, a combination of a mix of public and state-based organizations as we have previously introduced qualitative studies that investigate CSR in Saudi Arabia with a qualitative study design. The study encompasses definitions provided by academics about CSR, compares the CSR programs in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East to the activities of the world’s developing countries and also offers some recommendations for promoting good CSR practices. Results identify several significant obstacles to CSR integration, including lack of knowledge, inadequate accountability, and dependence on CSR maturity at the country level. The research shows that CSR awareness is growing in Saudi Arabia, facilitated by the development of new laws and standards, and that companies move away from being philanthropy-oriented and toward developing formal, strategy-oriented CSR behaviors. The research also comes to the end recommending CSR integration into corporate governance, connecting those CSR efforts so they can align with organizational core values, raising awareness of them in this study, and educating stakeholders are the research results. This contribution to the research is to contribute to a better understanding of how CSR is institutionalized in emerging markets and the strategic development of CSR outside of regulatory compliance.},
        keywords = {Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Qualitative research, CSR awareness, Philanthropy-to-strategy transition, Stakeholder engagement, Policy integration},
        month = {February},
        }