Current Practices of Corporate Social Responsibility in Serbia

Serbia has the specific tradition of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) due to the still ongoing transition from planned and central to the market economy. Previous research showed that the concept of CSR is broadly perceived more in the context of philanthropy and financial support. In the last decade, practices of multinational companies which operate in Serbia have a high impact on how CSR is practiced and perceived in Serbia. We analyzed publically available reports and evidence related to the CSR practices of the top 100 companies operating in Serbia. Content analysis was conducted to determine how they practice and perceive CSR. To explore association within attributes of companies with areas and beneficiaries of their CSR practice we used Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis statistical tests. The main findings presented in this chapter indicate that companies operating in Serbia generally perceive CSR practices in five main areas: Environment, Education, Health, Sports, and Volunteerism. Further, companies in Serbia are most familiar with CSR practices related to the environmental area, as well as, the volunteerism, and they recognize the local community, society in general, and vulnerable groups as main CSR beneficiaries. Company size and location are not proven to be in association with areas and beneficiaries of CSR practices. However, the MNCs have more categories of CSR beneficiaries comprehended, and they tend to develop CSR practices in which they consider the influence on society in general.