SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AS AN IMPORTANT ELEMENT OF SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS OPERATION

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become an increasingly important component
of a business that strives to meet increasingly demanding ethical, environmental, legal,
commercial and public standards. There are four main areas of application of corporate
social responsibility principles - marketplace, workplace, environment and community.
The aim of this paper is to bring closer the increasing corporate influence on modern
business in the Republic of Croatia and point to the importance of applying corporate social
responsibility as an efficient tool to gain competitive advantage. The application of corporate
social responsibility is slower in Croatia, and some of the reasons are as follows: poorly
managed transition, the war that marked the end of the 20th century, the 2008 economic
crisis, as well as the lack of state incentives. Despite the above-mentioned problems, the
situation in Croatia is improving, and the number of small and large enterprises applying
socially responsible business practices is on the increase. Application of corporate social
responsibility in a small and a large enterprise will be shown in the practical part of this
paper. The selected companies are part of the growing IT association in the city of Osijek
called Osijek Software City. In this way, the same environment (i.e. the city of Osijek) and
the same business activity (i.e. information technology) are provided. Inchoo Ltd. with 45
employees and Span Ltd. with more than 300 employees were selected as examples of a small
company and a large company, respectively.