Corporate Social Responsibility in Contemporary Organizations: Evidence from Serbian Processing Industry

Abstract Corporate social responsibility (CSR), as a concept that tackles economic, social, and environmental dimensions of business, becomes more and more implemented in companies all around the world. There are different effects that CSR can have on business performance, but it is generally accepted that CSR is related to positive outcomes in business organizations. Also, CSR is a concept that can be understood as a way of reaching sustainable development in the future. This paper aims to investigate the level of the implementation of CSR in Serbia, concerning large companies in the processing industry. The methodology used in the paper obtains exploration of theoretical sources, but also the analysis of primary empirical data gathered in Serbia, in the period from November 2019 until June 2020. The authors designed a questionnaire to explore the state of the art of CSR in Serbia, in business organizations, based on previous successful empirical research. Descriptive statistics, factor analysis, Mann-Whitney, and Kruskal Wallis tests were used to investigate the CSR on the sample of 73 large companies in Serbia’s processing industry. The analyses were made in SPSS software. The results point to the relatively high level of CSR activities in Serbian processing companies, and to the fact that modern companies understand the need of reaching more diversified goals than just economic ones in their business.