ABSTRACT

The study investigated the effect of corporate social responsibility on the profitability of manufacturing firms in Nigeria. To achieve this objective, the study specifically investigated the effect of corporate social responsibility on Net profit margin (NPM) of manufacturing firms in Nigeria, effect of corporate social responsibility on Return on Asset (ROA) of manufacturing firms in Nigeria, effect of corporate social responsibility on Return on Equity (ROE) of manufacturing firms in Nigeria. The study restricted its scope to the period 2009-2018 and data used for the study was adopted from the Nigeria Breweries plc, Nestle Nigeria plc and 7up Bottling company. The simple regression method was employed as the analytical tool. Findings show that Net profit margin, Return on Asset and Return on Equity proxies for profitability as the dependent variable has a positive and significant relationship with corporate social responsibility, with social responsibility cost as the proxy for the independent variable. The study recommends that Company’s management should adopt good programs and scheme that helps to perform its social responsibility to the community, such as provision of social amenities needed by the communities for example, health centre, pipe-borne water, e.t.c. Also, it  has been seen that social responsibility cost has significant and positive effect on the liquidity of the firm using current ratio which is a measure of liquidity as proxy, therefore based on the study, we recommend that investors should not be scared to invest its resource in the firm due to social responsibility costs as it has been proven to have a significant and positive effect on the firms profitability