Etica e sostenibilità: un’analisi della Corporate Social Responsibility

This paper aims to analyze the concept evolution of corporate social responsibility and its possible combination with the concept of business, meaning "an organization of people and goods aimed at satisfying human needs". The CSR is in the middle of dual function of the company, economic and social, based on the awareness that CSR is based on the "social contract", that each company stipulates with its internal and external environment. From this contract, derive obligations, rights and opportunities related to company’s’ operation. Based on that, the study focuses on the overlapping of ethics concept and CSR derived from the absence of a certain and universal definition of CSR, then the consequences of such overlapping are evaluated, identifying the key factors useful for giving a conceptual autonomy to the CSR. In the last decades, the growing awareness of environmental and social issues has led to the introduction of strategies oriented towards sustainable development. The analysis shows how companies can gain competitive advantages and improve their reputation by investing in sustainable practices. As result, the integration of these objectives requires a mixed approach that has the advantage of providing, externally, a global vision by combining the statistical data obtained with analysis contextualized. Therefore, technological innovation and cultural change play a crucial role. At the end an analysis is done of different theories related to the CSR that led to the concept of “sustainability”. The concept of company socially responsible goes beyond the masking of regulatory to acquire greater recognition in the environment in which it operates in the perspective of society and the protection of the various stakeholders earning its own right of citizenship.