Responsabilità sociale e performance d'impresa. Per una sintesi socio-competitiva

[Autom. eng. transl.] The book brings together a question of great interest in the current context: under what conditions can the assumption of social responsibility by a company be configured not as an additional cost, but as an investment able to contribute to the competitiveness and development of the company itself? The acceptance of social responsibility (CSR) accepted and made explicit in the first part of the book differs sharply from mere philanthropy, which would be exhausted in allocating a share of the income generated by the company for social purposes. CSR, on the other hand, structurally affects the strategic and operational management of the company, an economic-social institution that, in realizing its typical productive mission, inevitably exerts an influence on a multiplicity of subjects, creating (or destroying) value for each of them . CSR shows all its value when it proves convenient, in the etymological sense of coming together, that is, of meeting, of ¿being in harmony with the needs set by the objectives of competitiveness and economic viability of the company. This is the case of those socially oriented manifestations of entrepreneurship that are called socio-competitive syntheses in the book. A socio-competitive synthesis consists of an innovative way of responding to the expectations of one or more classes of social interlocutors (employees, local community, etc.), beyond what is provided for by current legislation and by the customs of the time, giving life to a solution that helps sustain and nurture the competitive advantage of the company and, therefore, its development plan. In the second part of the volume the theme of the convenience of CSR is resumed illustrating the results of a research - carried out by ISVI with the support of BPM, BVQI Italia, Ernst & Young Italia and Gruppo Ferrovie Nord Milano with over 130 Italian companies - which examined the correlation between social commitment and company performance, paying particular attention to the social report, to cause related marketing campaigns and to the SA8000 social certification. In investigating this correlation, the paradigm ¿CSR - Intangibles - Economic Performance¿ has been used as a reference model, as CSR interventions contribute to improving performance by feeding first and foremost that patrimony of intangible resources (organizational capital, human capital and relational capital) ) which constitutes a fundamental determinant of the future success of the company.