Evaluation problems of corporate social responsibility’s impact to financial performance

Corporate social responsibility and possibilities of its occurrence in business enterprises and non-profit institutions, beginning with philanthropy and ending with organization’s social responsiveness, ethical perception, are very broad. However, not all measures of social responsibility have the same impact to company’s financial performance. The scientific debate goes in the conceptual level; which elements should be included in the definition and evaluation of social responsibility, searching for CSR links with business environment, as well as in the empirical level; finding a reliable method to assess the impact. Three points of view in assessing a positive relationship can be distinguished: 1) corporate social responsibility can improve company’s profitability and financial performance; 2) better financial performance positively influences the level of corporate social responsibility, as the company can dedicate more of its resources to deal with social problems; 3) CSR and financial performance influence each other in spiral-shaped co-movement. In attempt to determine the impact of CSR to financial performance, some authors offer to calculate a global index of CSR and then evaluating a link with financial performance. Others think that social responsibility must be broken down into individual components and each component’s impact on company’s financial performance must be assessed separately. A review of empirical research has shown that different assessment methods give different resultsEkonomikos katedraVytauto Didžiojo universiteta