Values Endorsed by Top Responsible Large Czech Companies – Existent and Inconsistent?

Abstract

The sustainability command is embraced by businesses in the 21st century and is projected in their corporate social responsibility (CSR). The need of the employment of a multi-stakeholder model leads to a focus on common principles and priorities, i.e. creating shared values (CSV). The EU, with EU law, supports it, while various policies and organization reward it, such as the Czech organization Business pro Společnost, which, based on its synthetic index, selects the Czech TOP 25 most responsible companies. These companies have different countries of origins and operate in diverse industries, but they all are pro-sustainability. The question is whether they endorse the expected cultural, legal and social values (H1) and, if yes, whether there is a consistency and/or patterns (H2). Based on a sustainability, CSR and CSV review, a set of cultural, legal and social values are identified in order to be used in a case study. A pool of 36 large Czech companies from these TOP 25 in 2018-2022 is examined based on their BpS synthetic index, their country of origin´s Hofstede LTO and IDV and their advancement of internal reactive legal and social values (solidarity, respect) and external proactive legal and social values (equality, no waste) via their domains. These four legal and social values are ranked by an independent panel using a modified Likert scale and a manual Delphi approach. The yielded results are juxtaposed via a chart to allow pioneering propositions about the existence (H1) and inconsistency (H2) of values endorsed by top responsible large Czech companies.