Relationships Between Corporate Social Responsibility and Strategic Planning

Currently, organizations still have not reached full maturity in terms of implementing CSR programs. They continue to address CSR in different ways and focused on different objectives. Despite the fact that many organizations, especially multinationals, have developed and implemented CSR programs, they have not managed to fully integrate them within the organization’s strategy. Activities included in CSR programs are not integrated within core activities, but parallel to them. CSR has a multitude of strategic implications for an organization. Using CSR strategic instruments they can support in building and enhancing an organization’s reputation, in achieving a competitive advantage, because CSR programs are difficult to be copied. CSR enables integration of the capital holders’ interests with stakeholders’ interests on the way of achieving the maximum organizational profits. Although CSR programs involve a multitude of current activities, one can note that their implementation begins with the process of strategic planning. The planning process is aimed at fixing the objectives, strategies that are aimed at achieving these objectives and setting the timetable for the allocation of financial, material and human resources. The chapter will focus on the development of a methodological framework for the implementation of the CSR actions throughout the whole process of the strategic planning, essential for the success of CSR programs. For the CSR to be integrated in the business strategy it is required to rethink the mission, vision, completion of the organizations strategies in the spirit of CSR. A coherent and easy-to-apply methodological framework will facilitate the integration of CSR which might lead to achievement of any fundamental organizational strategies objective, which is the harmonization of the two fundamental aims of a contemporary organization—maximizing profits and meeting the needs and requirements of all stakeholders.