csr & religion - is there a connection?

At the recent CSR Fly Young conference organized by AIESEC-LC-CUHK, I held a discussion on CSR & Religion. Thought that this topic is something interesting in which we could discuss about and challenge each other's perspectives.

Let's start from the basics ;)
CSR = Corporate Social Responsibility basically means that corporate organizations needs to be responsible to the society. Responsible = meaning to do good stuffs for the society.

The Islamic Bank (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_bank) is an example of a corporate. And Islamic bank is definitely consistent with the Islamic Law where it prohibits the collection and payment of interest, also commonly called riba in Islamic discourse. In addition, Islamic law prohibits investing in businesses that are considered unlawful, or haraam (such as businesses that sell alcohol, or businesses that produce media such as gossip columns or pornography, which are contrary to Islamic values).

Loaning money without collection of interest; is very obvious that this is a good deed towards the society.

Also, it is quite obvious that Islamic Bank is definitely responsible to the well being of the society as it does not allow investment in businesses which are considered unlawful.

The questions:-
Is there a connection between CSR and religion?
Or would religion somehow help organizations internalize the concept of CSR?



From another perspective,

We know that in every religion, the most basic teachings is to have their believers do good to the society ;) According to the "Circle of Influence", a person is able to influence another person, then together influence a team, and teams would influence an organization.

So if a person who is religious working in the company, he/she would influence his/her colleagues and then it would be a water ripple effect. And the effect is that more and more people would wanna do good to the society as the circle of influence grows. Hmmm... only question is how strong is the influence of religion in an organization anyway??


Just some food for thought!