Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility Activities in Greece in a Period of a Prolonged Economic Crisis

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the performance of companies operating in Greece in the field of CSR, which have voluntarily participated for evaluation under the international tool titled Corporate Responsibility Index (CR Index). CR Index assesses companies based on their performance in CSR activities related to society, environment, market and employees. A well defined period of 6 years since the adoption of CRI in Greece is examined for 26 participating companies, starting in 2008. The paper follows a content analysis approach. The findings shed light to the limited existing literature on the influence of the economic crisis of a country on the allocation of CSR activities. The findings indicate that the participating companies become more effective in regard to their CSR activities since there is a significant qualitative difference between pre-crisis CSR practices and the one reported after. Moreover, our study shows a bidirectional influence process between companies and the society in which they operate, if we take into consideration that, despite the economic crisis and the companies significant drop in profits, they become more efficient and are highly evaluated. Nonetheless, the content analysis illustrated that companies could further communicate and promote CSR activities to the society' since they have not fully done so. This is so because the communication of the CRI in the companies' corporate websites and the reference in the awards received appears to be limited in the companies' corporate websites.

Community perceptions of local enterprises in environmentally degraded areas

“…However, only a third of the sample had communicated with local enterprises about community matters. This is a disappointing finding considering the important role that local enterprises can have in creating strong ties with local communities especially during challenging financial times (Ameer et al, 2017;Greiling and Grub, 2014;Kavoura and Sahinidis, 2015;Health and Lee, 2016). Regarding the impact of demographics, male respondents, younger individuals and participants with lower income and educational levels had a lower level of awareness of the activities of local businesses.…”

Corporate Social Responsibility: A marketing tool and/or a factor for the promotion of sustainable development for companies? An empirical examination of listed companies in the Athens Stock Exchange

“…It also appears, that the ethical face of the company is strengthened and that a competitive advantage is created, and as a result its financial performance, even in adverse economic conditions, can be enhanced, since according to Harjoto and Jo, CSR activities may be used by the directors to resolve conflicts among managers and various stakeholders (conflicts that arise or arose during the time of the economic crisis) which was also supported by Kavoura and Sahinidis [7]. In this sense, the adoption of CSR strengthens the value and the performance of a company.…”

Human capital reporting as a source of reliable information for marketing communication process in a socially responsible company

“…A report concerning human capital can be a source of value added of an organization. Lack of regular reporting is responsible for the fact, that stakeholders can receive incomplete or incomprehensible information concerning a given area of functioning of an organization, which may result in poor use of the potential in this particular area [31]. For instance, if basing on the human capital report one can conclude, that the level of human capital remuneration is about 8% it means that the employees are well paid.…”