How Romanian Managers Perceive the Corporate Social Responsibility and its Costs and Benefits

Abstract

At international level the preoccupations with social responsibility have a long history. In Romania the concept is relatively new, but it has become more visible during the last years. A thorough insight of the benefits and costs of social responsibility highlights a series of aspects. Generally, behind the adoption of certain social responsibility policies there are interests like the improvement of the company's image, the rise in sales and profit and finally the moral purposes.Sophocles used to say that any benefactor thinks at himself also in a certain degree. As far as the Romanian companies are concerned, this implies that the main purpose of the corporative social programs they develop is the gaining awareness in mass media. Our paper shows that, unfortunately, many companies are only interested in the mass media coverage of such events. The commitment towards community is very often on short term horizon and does not have a solid ground, being mainly a PR exercise.