The implication of Corporate Social Responsibility on the sustainable development in Romania

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to make an overview on the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) concept, to analyze the implementation status of this concept in the content of the on-going development strategies in Romanian organizations. In addition, there will be analyzed the CSR implication on the sustainable development of some Romanian companies. Methodology/approach - The first methodological step consists in bibliographical research of the CSR concept, definition of the concept, setting the CSR principles, and CSR management standards. The second step consists in establish the target group of this research, collection of statistical data, analyzing the data, and presenting the results. The target group of this research consists of 100 Romanian companies that are registered on the on the specialized Romanian site dedicated to CSR, and we analyzed them based on a set of relevant CSR management standards as: AA1000 Series, GRI Sustainability Guidelines, ISO 14000, ISO 26000, UNGC Ten Principles, SA 8000. Findings - After we have made this research, we can underline some preliminary findings: (1) CSR concept is related to domains that is concerned with the environment protection and to sustainable development. (2) CSR represents the base of sustainable development of companies strategy. (3) Lot of Romanian companies have not formulated a coherent CSR strategy; (4) Companies do not have sufficient information and knowledge on CSR, CSR indicators, and do not know the utility of adopting such strategy. Research limitations/implications - The small target group (only 100 companies) imposed the limitations of research. It is more a pilot research that supplied valuable hints for the research team, it will represent the starting point for a more comprehensive research in the field of CSR in Romania, and its particularities compared to CSR from the other countries. Practical implications This article debates current issues on CSR and sustainable development. CSR has to be implemented as a coherent strategy that helps companies in development process and can be an important step in combating the current economic crisis. Originality/value - The originality of this research is on (a) synthesis of the CSR concept based on relevant bibliography sources; (b) research of the status of CSR implementation in Romanian companies; (c) analysis of the CSR concept implementation in Romania; (d) demonstrating the connection between CSR and Sustainable Development at the organizational level.