The Corporate Social Responsibility Practices in The Context of Sustainable Development. The Case of Romania

AbstractOver the past two decades, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been a central topic for scholars in corporate governance studies, business ethics and law. More recently, however, economists have also started to pay more attention to CSR in popular newspapers and also in academic journals. The CSR concept developed due to the change in the business view, from a limited model, mainly oriented towards profit maximisation, to an open one, largely concerned with the quality of life, preservation of resources and meeting the general interests of society. In other words, a view included in the sustainable development principles. The companies’ social commitment has become a significant competitive edge in the new economy and Romania follows this international trend. This paper aims at analyzing the corporate social responsibility issue and the means to integrate it into long-term strategies of the companies that activate in the romanian business environment. The first part of the paper consists in the literature review of CSR and how it is linked to sustainable development. Increasingly companies are being held responsible not just for their own operations but also for the practices in other parts of their sphere of influence. Thus, the second part of the paper represents a study about the responsible practices in Romanian business environment. The attention is oriented to the challenges and benefits that companies have to face and how they are linked to the key actors of CSR. The third part studies the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of CSR development in Romania and how they reflect in sustainable development