SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF BUSINESS IN

Business Social Responsibility through the advantages that provides, plays an important role in business competition. With their social responsibility activities, businesses fulfill their responsibility for the community where they operate and improve their image to the public. Albanian businesses have started to get aware about social responsibility during the last years but this concept remains still unknown for the main part of businesses in Albania. Actually Albania is working hard toward the European integration. One of the requirements of the European Integration is the awareness of businesses concerning social responsibility. The purpose of this study is to identify the level of social responsibility awareness in medium and large businesses actually operating in Albania. 1. Business social responsibility definition The fact that businesses should have a social responsibility has been discussed in a lot of studies during the last 50 years. The definition of business social responsibility is still very ambiguous and vague (Fisher, 2004). Most definitions of corporate social responsibility describe it as a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis (EU, 2001). The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD, 1998), defines this concept as “a continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large”. Social responsibility is defined and placed in its contemporary business context, highlighting the importance of stakeholder dialogue for th