Designing a Model for Implementing Social Responsibility Policies Based on Ethical Governance in Higher Education

Abstract

The study aimed to develop and explain a model for implementing university social responsibility policies grounded in an ethical governance approach in order to bridge the gap between policy formulation and effective implementation. This qualitative study employed a systematic grounded theory methodology. Data were collected through 18 in-depth semi-structured interviews with higher education experts, policymakers, and university managers. Participants were selected using purposive and snowball sampling until theoretical saturation was achieved. Data analysis was conducted simultaneously with data collection using the constant comparative method, including open, axial, and selective coding stages, which led to the construction of a paradigmatic model. Findings indicate that social responsibility policy implementation in higher education is a context-dependent and multi-level phenomenon. Causal conditions included ethically responsible human resources, ethical leadership, socially oriented HR policies, socially responsive teaching and evaluation systems, and ethical economic infrastructures. Contextual conditions involved higher education governance structures, organizational culture, upstream regulations, and societal expectations. Intervening conditions comprised politicization, organizational resistance, conceptual ambiguity, weak incentive systems, and resource constraints. Strategic actions included institutionalizing ethical governance, redesigning policies and structures, empowering human resources, strengthening stakeholder participation, enhancing transparency and accountability, and developing collaborative networks. These strategies resulted in outcomes such as improved ethical and human capital, enhanced university governance, higher educational and research quality, strengthened university–society engagement, sustainable development, and increased institutional legitimacy. The results demonstrate that university social responsibility can be institutionalized only through ethical governance and the alignment of human, institutional, and value-based dimensions, while the proposed model provides a strategic analytical framework for policymakers, university leaders, and higher education researchers.