Corporate social responsibility developments in post-communist countries: Towards organisations’ social legitimacy

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to introduce corporate social responsibility CSR as an organisation’s management and stakeholders’ relations tool in post-communist countries for ensuring the organisation’s social legitimacy. The article discusses how understanding the interdependence between the organisation and society helps to support the organisation to develop social legitimacy and therefore ensure its sustainability. The general research problem in this article is connected with the societal context of studied organisations: how CSR could be positioned and managed in a post-communist society to avoid a rebuff against an organisation’s CSR activities. The topic of this paper is approached through three research questions: how post-communist organisations see the CSR position in the organisation, how social legitimacy is acknowledged and defined, and finally to what extent CSR is seen as a tool for ensuring social legitimacy. For the research, seven Estonian organisations’ representatives with management responsibility were interviewed to find out their thoughts and ideas about CSR and social legitimacy.

Communication of Socially-Responsible Activities by Higher Education Institutions

“…The given finding seems to be consistent with the stakeholder theory [9,10]. It is also consistent with the legitimacy theory [11,12], as by strengthening of relations with the public (community) or public institutions strengthens, higher education institutions reinforce the legitimacy of their existence. An interesting finding is that the monitored higher education institutions communicate environmental responsibility activities in the least scope.…”

“…A possible reason for this can be seen, among others, in the context of the developing trend of academic entrepreneurship [8], and also in efforts made by higher education institutions to ensure greater application of principles of behavior which were applied in the past almost exclusively by commercial entities. In the case in question, this concerns, for example, principles of behavior arising from the stakeholder theory [9,10] or the legitimacy theory [11,12]. It would therefore seem expedient to discuss the issue of USR to a greater extent and to broaden the knowledge in this area, not only from the point of view of theoretical points of departure, but also practical findings.…”