Social responsible business practices in Bulgaria: Change in organizational culture

Abstract

The growing challenges to business, connected to accelerated globalization, increasing environmental protection and decreasing poverty, change the role of business in society and make corporate social responsibility (CSR) a strong and irreversible part of more and more companies' corporate actions. Socially responsible attitude is: changing corporate values, modeling behavior, transforming personal positions in accordance with individual and personal interests -a process of integrating CSR into organizational culture. The main research question in this report is: Do firms operating in the Bulgarian market integrate CSR into their organizational culture? The survey includes three aspects:  First, a discussion on the concept of CSR and the different definitions for organizational culture; as well as revealing the connection between CSR and organizational culture.  Second, presenting different models of CSR that implicitly connect corporate social initiatives and different types of business responsibilities with the beliefs, attitudes and corporate values.  Third, implementing the benchmarking approach. The cultural change model towards sustainability of global carpet producer Interface, Inc. is used as a framework for studying the process of CSR integration into the organizational culture of companies operating in the Bulgarian market.Key words: corporate social responsibility, organizational culture, benchmarking approach INTRODUCIONThe idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been developed for many years and its concept is represented in many different ways (1-5). For over a decade the understanding that CSR is beyond the regulated by law traditional business responsibilities has predominated and in most definitions for CSR the voluntary principle of carrying out socially responsible initiatives is underlined. In the EU's new CSR strategy the concept of CSR is significantly expanded and it is defined as "a responsibility of the companies to their influence on society" (6, p.6). This is a starting point for the nature of CSR in the present study.In different countries business, as well as all separate companies conduct different socially responsible behavior, implement different _________________________  Correspondence to: Irena Slavova, Department of Marketing and Strategic Planning, University of National and World Economy, Sofia, email:irenaslavova@yahoo.com policies, initiatives and forms of accountancy.Among the many factors that influence the way in which companies realize CSR is culture as an element of the environment in which firms operate, as well as the company's culture -the beliefs, values and adjustments that form its identity.In the following article the connection between CSR and organizational culture is studied. The conducted short literature overview and the presented CSR models show different perspectives on the nature and interaction between CSR and organizational culture. The thesis is defined that CSR is part of organizational culture when the internal business p...