SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE STRATEGY OF BUSINESS ENTITIES

Social responsibility is a common part of corporate practice and an established topic of scientific research. Foreign studies have repeatedly concluded that the consistent integration of social responsibility into corporate strategy and strategic management of all dimensions of CSR strengthen corporate growth, bring competitive advantages, and contribute to the sustainable development of society. The aim of the paper is to find out whether even in the Czech Republic business entities with a strategic concept of CSR achieve better economic results compared to those whose approach to social responsibility is rather intuitive and unsystematic. Also, it seeks to answer the question of whether, with different corporate strategies, it is desirable to focus on different CSR activities that would support corporate growth. A survey of the dimensions of strategic CSR and basic economic characteristics was carried out on a set of more than 400 Czech companies engaged in CSR. Data were processed by methods of cluster analysis, factor analysis and multinomial logistic regression. The results show that there is a link between a more advanced (i.e., strategic) concept of CSR and achieving economic prosperity. It was also found that companies with different corporate strategies should carefully consider the benefits of individual CSR activities. All three strategies have shown positive effects resulting from activities aimed at employees and the local community. The differentiation strategy has shown the benefits of cultivating a market environment and the highest quality strategy for human rights protection. On the other hand, with the lowest price strategy, additional CSR activity does not mean an economic advantage. The conclusions contribute to the clarification of the links between strategic CSR and corporate growth in the Czech business environment and contribute specific knowledge that can be implemented by companies if they want to strengthen the positive effects of their socially responsible activities.