Corporate social responsibility and firm efficiency in Serbia

Abstract

In recent years, an increasing number of scientific papers have explained that the firm efficiency is associated with corporate social responsibility (CSR). However, only a few empirical studies confirm these claims, or these studies have some limitations. Therefore, in this paper some investigation will be made to see if there is a link between CSR and business performance, i.e. whether companies that have better business performance are also characterized by a higher degree of CSR. Considering that the relationship between corporate social responsibility and business performance of enterprises is largely caused by the number of factors, this study examines this relationship in circumstances specific to the business environment of the Republic of Serbia. The aim of this paper is to examine whether there is a link between CSR and business performance in Serbia. The analysis was conducted by interviewing managers in 184 Serbian companies. In data processing a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and correlation analysis were used. The hypothesis that there is a statistically significant relationship between business performance and their CSR is confirmed, based on empirical data.