Implementing Corporate Social Responsibility. An Exploratory Study of Strategy Integration and CSR Officers’ Duty

Abstract

In recent years Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) gained relevance in business strategy, asking to address social and environmental issues in business. To manage these issues the firms are rethinking their strategy, intro-ducing specific CSR actions and programs, and they are modifying their structure, establishing new positions called “CSR officers”. In this study, we explored the relations above integration of social and environmental is-sues into the firms' strategy, the degree of CSR officers’ duty and the amount of implemented social and envi-ronmental activities. Data of a survey aimed to 100 CSR officers operating in Italian listed firms was used. We analyze data on implementation of 39 typical CSR actions in each firm. Data proves that recognize a high duty to CSR officer is as important as the integration of CSR into the firm’s strategy to implement a large amount of CSR actions into the firm.