Abstract:

The issue related to the role of corporate social responsibility in designing companies' strategies and activities is extremely timely, as is shown by recent political decisions at European and national levels as well as the growing interest of practitioners and academics. This work aims at highlighting the motivations in adopting socially conscious behaviours in corporations and at defining a model linking the reason for socially sound conducts to the kind of actions undertaken and the measurement of the outputs obtained. Researchers ran an empirical investigation in 30 European (precisely Italian, French and German) large and middle-sized companies using direct observation, in-depth interviews and artefact analysis techniques.