engleski

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Marketing Practice in The Croatian Food Companies

The corporate social responsibility is an area of great interest in both science and business communities worldwide. There are high expectations from implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR). At a company level, it’s expected that CSR contributes to company’s competitiveness. At social level, responsible companies are expected to contribute significantly in solving different problems. Existing social problems have been accumulated over years, and in a wide range ; from environmental issues to the need for improvement of quality life in the community. Nowadays, these problems have been more often found in the center of public attention. It leads to the change of social values system ; it raises expectations and demands of particular social groups toward socially responsible behaviors at business sectors. Companies are faced with new challenges ; responsibilities for the effects of their actions on society and environment. At the same time, in the Republic of Croatia, it looks like there is a lack of interest for CSR. This is an area that is mostly considered by a narrow circle of scholars and practitioners. CSR is not sufficiently present or known to the general public ; a practice and its effects have not been adequately investigated, or presented. The purpose of this article is to investigate approaches to CSR and connections with the marketing practices in the Croatian food companies. A starting assumption of this research is the existence of differences in understanding, and therefore, in the practice of CSR among the Croatian food companies. The research was conducted on a sample of the Croatian food companies, including representatives of large, medium and small companies. The results confirm the differences in understanding of CSR, the 405 existence of certain traditions of social marketing initiatives, as well as areas for improvement of management and connectivity of CSR and marketing practice, in order to increase the competitiveness of the Croatian food companies.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR); Socially responsible business practice; Socially responsible marketing initiatives; Marketing strategy; Marketing management; Croatian food companies

The Proceedings are referred by EBSCO PUBLISHING DATABASE