Corporate Social Responsibility through SDGs: Preliminary Results from a Pilot Study in Italian Universities

Abstract

Background: In the broad scientific debate on the integration of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the strategic planning of universities and on the use of monitoring the results of the strategy of the indicators relating to the pursuit of sustainable development goals (SDGs), there is a lack of studies demonstrating the effective degree of institutionalization of CSR in universities. Methods: This analysis constitutes a pilot study relating to the Italian university context. The study was carried out through an analysis on the contents of the three-year strategic performance plans (2020–2022) drawn up by individual universities and compulsorily published on the national portal of the Public Function Department, as required by article 10, paragraph 1, letter (a) of Legislative Decree 150/2009. A matrix was made with the information extracted by the documents and relative to the presence of the SDGs in the strategic performance plan. Consequently, using a Likert scale, the different degrees of institutionalization of CSR in the strategic plan of the universities were coded. Results: The results of the pilot study highlighted that the strategic planning of Italian universities’ CSR practices and the challenges of sustainable development are hardly ever systematically addressed. Therefore, there is a low degree of institutionalization of CSR in the Italian university system, even though the literature shows a high cultural and scientific commitment to establish university and post-graduate study courses with corporate social responsibility and sustainable development content and an increasing trend in the use of the accountability tools such as the social report or the sustainability report. Conclusions: It is necessary to share the results of scientific research on CSR and SDGs with the government and governance bodies of universities in order to harmonize the CSR and sustainability culture of these bodies with that of academics.

CSR and fashion SMEs: Do sustainable development goals matter?

“…In a study, Castillo-Villar (2020) conducted a cross-sector partnership analysis in the context of the 2030 Agenda, identifying those CSR determinants that could contribute to the realization of SDG18 Partnership for Goals in universities. In addition to Castillo-Villar (2020), Costa et al (2021) also placed the realization of goals and the study of the context of CSR in a university setting. In addition, the literature gives an example of a diagnostic tool to aid the design of better interventions for achieving the SDGs in the case of multinational companies through using a responsibility matrix model.…”

“…In addition, the literature gives an example of a diagnostic tool to aid the design of better interventions for achieving the SDGs in the case of multinational companies through using a responsibility matrix model. Some articles also address the field of business ethics and brand loyalty in search of the mediating role of corporate social responsibility and perceived green marketing through the contribution of the SDGs (Castillo-Villar, 2020; Costa et al, 2021;Amoako et al, 2021). Some articles put the emphasis on the relation between perceived SDG regarding economic, social or environmental progress over the past 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic and specifically focus on customers' perceptions (Lorgnier et al, 2022).…”

Corporate Social Responsibility, Stakeholder Engagement, and Universities

“…The third paper is "Corporate Social Responsibility through SDGs: Preliminary Results from a Pilot Study in Italian Universities" by Costa et al (2021). This research focuses on the three-year strategic performance plans (2020-2022) of Italian universities to investigate the effective degree of institutionalization of CSR in universities.…”

Developing a method for incorporating sustainability into the strategic planning of higher education institutions

“…Various authors evaluated the presence of sustainability in universities in Italy. Costa et al (2021) evaluated 67 universities in this IJSHE 24,4 country to verify the presence of SDGs in their official documents and found that, out of 67 HEIs, only 11 (16%) had institutionalized these objectives. According to the authors, "the pilot study highlight that CSR practices and challenges of SD are not systematically addressed in the strategic planning of Italian universities" (p. 11).…”

“…In this regard, SD can be viewed as an innovation in the university system because it involves transformative learning, which implies a great challenge of facing the complexity of implementing systemic thinking and the barrier of disciplinary division (Ferrer-Balas et al , 2009). In recent decades, university institutions have been called on to rethink their models, adopting a more responsive position in relation to society’s needs and assuming the role of change agents (Costa et al , 2021).…”