This study aims to investigate the relationship among the various institutional pressures, corporate social responsibility, legitimacy, and reputation in the context of Indian corporates. It also provides an in-depth industry-wise analysis for the said relationship. BSE 500 listed companies form the population for this pan-India primary research. PLS-SEM is the statistical technique adopted to examine the relationship between research constructs. The overall industry analysis established a positive association between all six institutional pressures and CSR activities, but the comprehensive multigroup industrial analysis revealed that kind of institutional pressures that are important to corporates vary across industries. Multi-group analysis points out that—local communities, peers, and media are statistically significant for high as well as low impact industries. But government and NGOs are not statistically significant pressure groups for low impact industries. However, industry associations are not important as a pressure group for both high impact as well as low impact industries. Furthermore, legitimacy is seen to fully mediate the relationship between CSR and reputation for the national level survey.
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