Social Responsibility At The Academic Level. Study Case: The University Of Bucharest

Abstract

In the last decades the corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been a major subject both for universities, civil society and businesses. Although the CSR concept is especially promoted by large multinational and transnational corporations, it has become also a prominent issue for universities. Social responsibility represents more than a challenge for universities. It has to be a purpose of the universities, taking into account that young people formation also means creating a high level of awareness about the need to involve members of society in solving social problems. Our paper contributes for better clarifying the CSR concept and presents as a study case some of initiatives of the University of Bucharest related to the social responsibility.

Corporate social responsibility in higher education

“…There is a significant number of studies that scrutinise CSR and its benefits to higher education. For example, studies show a positive reputation and strong competitive advantage to higher education institution (i.e., Ahmad, ; Dahan & Senol, ; Ezekiel, Ruth, & Emmanuel, ; Mehta, ) and improvement of graduates' employability after attaining higher education (Marinescu, Toma, & Constantin, ).…”

“…Porter and Kramer () argue that in terms of corporate reputation, a corporation employs CSR to justify that it will improve their image, strengthen its product, and raise the value of its stock. Likewise, the higher education sector perceives CSR as an important marketing strategy to increase the employability of its graduates (Marinescu et al, ). Universities realise that in a competitive marketplace, one of the strategies for their survival is to produce the quality of graduates defined by their employability.…”

A Matter of Responsible Management from Higher Education Institutions

“…Vasilescu et al [28] approach the social responsibility of a university as "the need to strengthen civic commitment and active citizenship; it is about volunteering, about an ethical approach, developing a sense of civil citizenship by encouraging the students, the academic staff to provide social services to their local community or to promote ecological, environmental commitment for local and global sustainable development". Others define the social responsibility of HEIs from a stakeholder-oriented perspective [22,29,30]. In another approach, Reiser [31] identifies distinct types of social responsibilities: (1) organizational responsibility to lead as an ethical example, (2) cognitive responsibilities of scientific output, (3) social responsibilities towards the community on issues of social development, and (4) educational responsibilities for responsible citizens.…”

“…In this regard, the review is useful for mapping current management performance in that research field and identifying further research areas not yet studied [19]. The review adds to the mostly qualitative and case-based research in this area, reporting on implementation approaches [19][20][21] or discussing factors of success [17,22,23], by proposing a pattern for the assessment and management of social performance issues in HEIs.…”

Universities as Corporate Entities: The Role of Social Responsibility in Their Strategic Management

“…However, the USR studies are gaining attention and value for the necessary promotion and development of civil values and responsibilities [22]. Particularly, this attention is focused on the university capability to influence on the education of citizens in a globalized world [23], and on the university goal of building a fairer society [24]. According to these facts, social responsibility justifies its application within universities.…”