Social responsibility in portuguese public sector companies according to the global reporting initiative standards: an exploratory study
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abstract
Social actions since the 1960s have been the subject of debate within the concept of corporate
social responsibility. In the early 1970s the idea that the company's only responsibility is to provide
maximum financial return to shareholders is demystified and the concept is redefined with the
company's obligations to society, that is, in addition to the search for financial gain, it will tend to
balance social, legal and ethical commitments (Carroll, 1991). Despite the business community's
concern for society for centuries, it is possible to consider the late 1990s and early 21st century, as
a starting point for change in terms of meaning and expansion of the concept of social
responsibility in the business environment (Carroll, 2008). Thus, this study will explore the level of
corporate social responsibility in Portuguese public sector companies. The intention will be to
characterize the most frequent practices of social responsibility. To provide answers to the research
questions and validate the hypotheses formulated during this study, the analysis of the sustainability
reports of Portuguese public companies will consider the last five years (2015 to 2020). To this
end, we will proceed to the content analysis of those reports and build the corporate social
responsibility index in each year, for each company, considering the Global Reporting Initiative
(GRI) standards and the dimensions identified in the European Union Green Paper on social
responsibility.
