Shaping New Generations of Managers and Consumers: CSR Implementation and Higher Education System in Poland

Abstract

Considering the corporate social responsibility as a significant research and education topic for university staff, students, graduates and the whole society, has become a sign of our times. Universities and other education institutions, including the third sector, play an important role, incorporating CSR as a crosscutting issue, in particular into the curricula of future managers and graduate students, no matter the country we focus on. This process is very important in countries under the transition process, but also for countries that just finished this process but still feel the burden of the previous centrally controlled economic system on their backs, and also for the well developed world economies. Poland has successfully managed to reach quite satisfactory economic parameters during the last 25 years of constant transformation but there are a lot of critics regarding the social aspects, which seem still to be inferior to the Western work and life conditions. This paper aims to present the Polish national background regarding the CSR implementation as well as the responsible education in the last 10 years. It provides also an educational and organizational picture of Gdansk University of Technology (GUT) and in particular, of its Faculty of Management and Economics, as an example of non-pioneering but at the same time quite dynamic Polish state university. Empirical data, provided by a survey conducted on 200 students of that Faculty, enrich the analysis, offering new elements for further researches.