Transformations  in
Business & Economics

Consumers’ Perceptions towards Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives – A Qualitative Approach
Alin Stancu, Georgiana Florentina Grigore, Mihai Rosca

ABSTRACT. Corporate social responsibility is a concept that embodies interdisciplinary approach, from politics to economics, from business to ethics. Many authors described the positive impact of CSR on the company’s activities: attracts and retain high quality employees, generates a positive corporate image, increases reputation, increases sales, reduces the retention rate from the consumers, reduces operational costs, increases the quality of products and services. The increased market competition and stakeholder pressure determines companies to start engaging in CSR activities.

In marketing field, CSR is becoming a very popular instrument used by companies in shaping their strategy. The debate about CSR started in Romania after year 2000, but still we can say that the level of CSR development is embryonic. Few of Romanian companies are engaging in socially and environmentally responsible business practices, most of them being multinational ones. This paper presents the development of CSR activities of the Romanian companies, by focusing on the reasons that motivates companies to involve in CSR. The paper wants to present the social responsible initiatives that Romanian companies engaged in. In order to describe the context of development of CSR in Romania we collected important evidence from relevant marketing, strategic management and CSR literature.

KEYWORDS: social responsibility, stakeholders, strategy, case study, Romania.

JEL classification: M14, P2.