Abstract
This study aims to contribute to the existing debate on the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) orientation on different measures of business performance through the proposal of a conceptual model. Drawing on stakeholder theory, we conceptualize CSR as a broad and multidimensional construct with seven dimensions: employees, partners, customers, farmers, environment, community, and competition. We also extend the concept of business performance, which includes tangible variables, namely financial performance (FP) and export performance (EXP), as well as intangible variables, namely image and reputation (IR) and the satisfaction of relevant stakeholders (SS). The research context of this study is the agri-food sector in southeastern Spain. This sector has been the focus of attention of numerous researchers due to the relevance that social and environmental aspects have had in its development. To test the proposed model, the partial least-squares technique (PLS-SEM) was applied to data collected by means of a survey from a sample of 107 companies, which represent 81.4% of the turnover of the sector analyzed. The results show that CSR has a positive effect on financial performance, improves the volume and performance of exports, positively affects the corporate image and reputation, and increases the level of satisfaction of relevant stakeholders. Further research should examine the model from the perceptions of other stakeholders (e.g., customers, employees, and suppliers), using a longitudinal research design and exploring other contexts.
Highlights
In recent decades, there has been growing interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR), both from academia and business
We focus on analyzing their effects in the agri-food context and, in particular, in the fruit and vegetable sector of southeastern Spain, which is of special interest and relevance since its evolution has been marked by social and environmental aspects, as demonstrated in various works
The results suggest that the commitment assumed by the companies of the agri-food sector of the southeast of Spain with regards to CSR has a positive effect on their financial performance (FP), which is aligned with the instrumental approach of stakeholder theory [31] and with the numerous previous works that confirm the “hypothesis of social impact” [2]
Summary
There has been growing interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR), both from academia and business. We can add the pressures from an increasingly demanding society, one that is sensitive to irresponsible business behavior (i.e., firms’ behaviors which do not consider the impact their activities have on society and environment); the pressure from public institutions at both national and international levels through different guidelines and regulatory developments; and the pressure from other agents operating in the market. Despite the numerous studies that have analyzed the relationship between CSR and business performance in recent decades, the findings are not entirely conclusive [1], keeping academia interested in deepening their understanding of this relationship. One of the reasons for this lack of consensus stems from the existence of different conceptualizations of CSR and business performance, as well as different measurement methodologies and different models used to analyze the relationship between both variables
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