Managerial Discretion and Corporate Social Responsibility among Manufacturing Firms in Uganda: A Relative Importance Analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51137/wrp.ijarbm.902Keywords:
Managerial Discretion, Corporate Social Responsibility, Relative Weights AnalysisAbstract
Corporate social responsibility is key for firm sustainability since. The currenmt study seeks to establish the influence of managerial discretion on corporate social responsibility. Specific dimensions of managerial discretion that most powerfully drive Corporate social responsibility are not empirically tested. Prior studies treat managerial discretion as a composite, unidimensional construct, thereby obscuring which specific dimension of decision-making autonomy or internal organizational factors exerts the greatest influence on CSR. Using Relative Weights Analysis, this study examined the dimension-specific effects of managerial discretion on corporate social responsibility. A cross-sectional quantitative survey design was adopted. Data were collected from 314 medium and large manufacturing firms in Uganda using a structured self-administered questionnaire. Hierarchical regression analysis tested the dimension-specific hypotheses, and Relative Weights Analysis (RWA) was subsequently employed to determine the precise proportional contribution of each managerial discretion dimension to total CSR variance. Both dimensions of managerial discretion positively and significantly predicted CSR. Hierarchical regression results established decision-making autonomy as the stronger predictor (β = .583, p < .001) relative to internal organizational factors (β = .354, p < .001). RWA results corroborated and refined these findings: decision-making autonomy accounted for the larger proportion of explained CSR variance (RW = 58.2%, rescaled), while internal organizational factors contributed 41.8%. This study makes a dual methodological and substantive contribution. Methodologically, it is among the first studies in the managerial discretion-CSR literature to apply RWA. The study also generates dimension-specific empirical evidence from manufacturing firms in a developing-country African context where evidence on the differential importance of managerial discretion dimensions for CSR is not yet tested.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Annet I. Bakunzi, Musenze I. Abaasi, Sudi Nangoli, Rehema Namono (Author)
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