Analysis of Social Responsibility and Reporting Methods of Romanian Companies in the Countries of the European Union

In the context of the current economy, the concept of corporate social responsibility has gained momentum, and its significance derives from the attitude of companies that have understood the importance of the impact of their activity on the environment in which they conduct their operations. The present study emphasizes the fact that CSR has an equal importance for those companies of varying sizes that operate in developing countries, such as Romania. There are still a lot of challenges regarding their implementation. The study focuses on establishing the level of CSR report by the Romanian companies within the European Union framework by taking into account the extent to which they are familiar with the CSR reporting guidelines in order to identify the degree of applying the Global Reporting Guidelines (GRI) when designing the sustainability reports. The data regarding the acceptance of the voluntary report and its correlation to the sustainable development as a strategic focus of the management of entities, the usefulness, the necessity and the obstacles of voluntary reporting were gathered based on a questionnaire. Between 2015-2017, 61 Romanian companies of various sizes had to answer specific questions. The research is based on the descriptive statistics as well as the correlation analysis method. The findings of the research proved that the acceptance of the management in terms of the sustainable development is in a close relationship with implementing voluntary reporting and the willingness to develop a favorable image of the company within a competitive market. The study also identified the differences that exist between a company's success on the market that is linked to their development and the economic factors that characterize each and every field of activity. The present study focuses on defining the term 'social responsibility' from the point of view of its concepts. It also aims at presenting the social responsibility reporting methods used by the companies from the European Union countries. These can be a starting point for those companies that have not had the chance of applying them yet.