Differentiation of Sustainable Development and CSR Concepts in the South-West Indian Ocean Region

Sustainable Development (SD) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are two globalised concepts that have made their way across regions and sectors for decades. Understanding of a concept can vary from one context to another. In this sense, this research consists of conducting a study of the understanding of the concepts of SD and CSR in business and higher education in the south-west of the Indian Ocean region. The main objective is to draw the topography of variants and trends by studying the different documentations in the region and carrying out contextualised SD and CSR modelling. The population of the study are companies and national and regional academic programmes implemented in the Madagascar, Mauritius and La Réunion islands. It is an exploratory and comparative study through a lexicometric analysis of a corpus composed of 83,68 active forms, 92,094 tokens and 09 modalities. The statistical methods include descriptive statistics, Descending Hierarchical Classification (DHC) and Factorial Correspondence Analysis (FCA). Findings highlight the different ways SD and CSR are understood, perceived and practiced, as well as the complementary nature of academic models and the practices of companies operating in the field. Four levels of understanding composed the model. In this sense, the knowledge gained from this research would serve both higher education and companies to refine their programme in SD and CSR. It serves as an accurate tool to accelerate the implementation of sustainable practices, offering more effective and responsible management of CSR and SD challenges.