Ethics between theory and practice - social responsibility in the Romanian business environment

The present paper represents a socio-economic interdisciplinary perspective and is the result of a study on the way in which social responsibility in business is turned from a theoretical approach, one highly promoted by the European Union, at present, into a concrete action. We have carried out a qualitative research, based on an in-depth interview, on the opinions of 46 managers from a provincial area, the Mures County and from the top business area in Romania Bucharest. We have reached three main conclusions. Firstly, the interviewees do not correlate the current problems of the Romanian society with active entrepreneurship; they do not find real solutions to these problems through entrepreneurial activities. Secondly, the subjects appreciate that social responsibility actions are mainly performed for economic reasons. Thirdly, the implementation of social responsibility is connected to the size of the enterprise. Big companies are more likely to develop SR actions within a strategic vision. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the 8th International Strategic Management Conference