194
A. B. M. Assunção et al.
Corporate Social Responsibility guidelines in the strategies and routine of companies
provides competitive advantages for organizations.
This study addresses the perception of concepts related to CSR by workers from
an operational unit of an energy company and identifies the actions of the company
that contribute to forming this perception. The perception of the internal public,
an essential stakeholder, was obtained by simple association; workers manifested
themselves regarding their opinions on what was a “socially responsible company”.
After the theoretical background was associated with the collected data, the different
conceptions of CSR by workers on the object of study were identified. The theme
choice is justified by the context and the presented objective, given there is a gap in
the literature especially considering the point of view of organizational practices and
scientific demands.
2 The Concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Carroll (1999) proposes a historical description of CSR processes that, although by
no means definitive, helps to situate the evolution of such concepts, starting from the
academic literature and going through the adoption of CSR practices by companies
and international corporations. The author describes at least five distinct moments:
(a) the beginning and development of initial concepts in the 1950s; (b) the expansion
of literature on the subject in the 1960s; (c) the proliferation of definitions in the
1970s; (d) the research and search for related and alternative themes in the 1980s;
and (e) the consolidation of CSR as a starting point for other studies in the 1990s.
Tenório (2015) states that corporate social activity arose at the beginning of the
twentieth century with philanthropy. Thus, the concepts of CSR were confused with
those of philanthropy. This scenario only began to change with the incorporation of
social actions by companies, oftentimes aimed at workers themselves, who revolted
in the face of long working hours and low wages (Waddock 2008). As such, these
consequences of industrialization led Henry Ford to establish, in the 1920s, minimum
wage and maximum working hours of eight hours a day on the automotive production
line, attesting that his company had a social role with responsibilities to workers and
consumers (Tenório 2015).
According to Carroll (1979), corporate social responsibility covers the economic,
legal, ethical and discretionary expectations that society has of corporations,
assuming that the economic component is inseparable from business performance.
However, the responsibilities of companies would not be exhausted in this sphere,
since there would still exist three other equally important dimensions (Carroll 1999;
Carroll and Shabana 2010): (a) legal liability: compliance with laws to ensure that
products follow safety standards and follow environmental regulations established
in the legal and institutional environment in which the business operates; (b) ethical
responsibility: the decision-making by companies should be the result of ethical analysis and reflection, requiring decisions that broadly consider the effects of actions
A. B. M. Assunção et al.
Corporate Social Responsibility guidelines in the strategies and routine of companies
provides competitive advantages for organizations.
This study addresses the perception of concepts related to CSR by workers from
an operational unit of an energy company and identifies the actions of the company
that contribute to forming this perception. The perception of the internal public,
an essential stakeholder, was obtained by simple association; workers manifested
themselves regarding their opinions on what was a “socially responsible company”.
After the theoretical background was associated with the collected data, the different
conceptions of CSR by workers on the object of study were identified. The theme
choice is justified by the context and the presented objective, given there is a gap in
the literature especially considering the point of view of organizational practices and
scientific demands.
2 The Concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Carroll (1999) proposes a historical description of CSR processes that, although by
no means definitive, helps to situate the evolution of such concepts, starting from the
academic literature and going through the adoption of CSR practices by companies
and international corporations. The author describes at least five distinct moments:
(a) the beginning and development of initial concepts in the 1950s; (b) the expansion
of literature on the subject in the 1960s; (c) the proliferation of definitions in the
1970s; (d) the research and search for related and alternative themes in the 1980s;
and (e) the consolidation of CSR as a starting point for other studies in the 1990s.
Tenório (2015) states that corporate social activity arose at the beginning of the
twentieth century with philanthropy. Thus, the concepts of CSR were confused with
those of philanthropy. This scenario only began to change with the incorporation of
social actions by companies, oftentimes aimed at workers themselves, who revolted
in the face of long working hours and low wages (Waddock 2008). As such, these
consequences of industrialization led Henry Ford to establish, in the 1920s, minimum
wage and maximum working hours of eight hours a day on the automotive production
line, attesting that his company had a social role with responsibilities to workers and
consumers (Tenório 2015).
According to Carroll (1979), corporate social responsibility covers the economic,
legal, ethical and discretionary expectations that society has of corporations,
assuming that the economic component is inseparable from business performance.
However, the responsibilities of companies would not be exhausted in this sphere,
since there would still exist three other equally important dimensions (Carroll 1999;
Carroll and Shabana 2010): (a) legal liability: compliance with laws to ensure that
products follow safety standards and follow environmental regulations established
in the legal and institutional environment in which the business operates; (b) ethical
responsibility: the decision-making by companies should be the result of ethical analysis and reflection, requiring decisions that broadly consider the effects of actions