Empirical Analysis on CSR Communication in Romania: Transparency and Participation

In the specific field of corporate social responsibility (CSR), the participation of companies in supporting social and environmental issues is mainly analysed and/or measured based on their CSR communication policy; in this way, the transparency of the CSR reporting procedures is one of the most precise challenges for researchers and practitioners in the field. The main research objective of the present paper is to distinguish between different types of CSR participation by identifying the reasons behind CSR communication for a series of companies acting on the Romanian market. The descriptive analysis – conducted both at integrated and corporate level for the Romanian companies – took into account five main CSR communication related issues: CSR site, CSR report, CSR listing, CSR budget and CSR survey. The results highlight both the declarative/prescriptive and practical/descriptive perspectives of CSR communication in Romania, showing that the Romanian CSR market is reaching its full maturity. In more specific terms, the majority of the investigated companies are already using different types of CSR participation, marking the transition from CSR just for commercial purposes to CSR for long-term strategic use. The achieved results are broadly analysed in the paper and specific conclusions are emphasized.