The Organizational-Level Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility in Serbia in Light of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Introduction

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is not a new concept. It emerged in the 1950s in the sense that is an event, as acceptable today, but the ideas that constitute CSR have been present in the literature since much earlier. CSR emerged as a response to the great challenges that shook the business in the last century. Those are many financial frauds and economic crises, political affairs, degradation and destruction of the environment, social problems like poverty, inequality, discrimination, etc. CSR is seen as a concept that can make business organizations more “human”, more ethical, and responsible to a wider business and natural environment.

CSR can be defined in different ways, as many authors all around the world have tried to provide a possible explanation of this concept. Most of them agree that CSR can be defined as the aspiration of an organization to contribute to the community in which it operates through its activities. It involves the organization's interaction with different stakeholder groups: employees, customers, suppliers, local community, governmental and non-governmental organizations, etc. Moreover, the concept of corporate social responsibility enables organizations to achieve a balance between their economic, social, and environmental goals (Hopkins, 2005; Dahlsrud, 2008; Berber et al., 2019). Also, “CSR is a socially constructed value, and legitimacy is a core principle both for defining CSR and for determining the success of CSR activities” (Lee & Carroll, 2011, p. 117). According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, CSR is the “continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large” (Moir, 2001, p. 18). Therefore, CSR always incorporates the ethical, economic, and social components, and in the new era, environmental, too.

Since early 2020 the world has been faced with the new challenge, the Covid-19 pandemic, which is one of the largest epidemics that influenced all countries of the world, with different, but definitively negative implications to the life, economy, safety, and health of people. Some of the implications of the pandemic are seen in the economic recession that was caused by the closing of many companies due to health issues. Some organizations closed down their business for a few months, others operated in a very limited manner. Donthu and Gustafsson (2020) stated that the pandemic has led to dramatic changes in how businesses act, and consumers, employees, and leaders behave. Many problems arise from a pandemic, and it is a question now whether CSR could be a factor for overcoming these issues in business (Qui et al., 2021). Also, not all industries and sectors were hit by this crisis, which is another intriguing question to be answered. Seetharaman (2020) stated that “industries that produce and deliver information products and services have continued to function while those that manufacture physical products especially labor-intensive firms were forced to minimize operations or temporarily shut down” (p. 1).