Corporate social responsibility and stakeholders: Review of the last decade (2006–2015)

Abstract

Background: Globalization, strong development of information-communication technologies and the emergence of new burning challenges for the global communities enabled the concept of corporate social responsibility to be perceived as a business model that allows for successful differentiation of companies, as well creating sustainable competitive advantage. Objective: The goal of the paper is to offer a short overview of the role of internal and external stakeholders within the concept of corporate social responsibility and point out the importance of quality relationships between the company and its stakeholders with the aim of improving the standard of living of all community members. Methods/approach: The paper is based on a systematic analysis of previously published relevant international scientific papers in the field of corporate social responsibility, stakeholder theory and information-communication technologies. Results: This paper demonstrates that the concept of corporate social responsibility has gone, in its several decades of existence, from the "unnecessary dependency" phase to the critical business model phase. Conclusions: As there is a natural connection between the concept of corporate social responsibility and the stakeholders, it can be concluded that the quality of the relationship between the company and its stakeholders represents a key factor that affects the success of the company in its notion of differentiating itself from competitors and creating sustainable competitive advantage.

Keywords

• corporate social responsibility
• stakeholders
• information-communication technologies
• differentiation