Corporate Family Responsibility and Corporate Social Responsibility in Theory and Practice

Sustainable growth and larger and better employment are two challenges to confront for safeguarding the European model of society [Eu Commission 2001; 2006; 2010; Ec 2010]. The Eu Green Paper [Eu 2002] places the companies’ actions toward employees among the key internal dimensions of Corporate Social Responsibility (Csr). Csr can be defined as the extent to which companies voluntarily integrate social and environmental concerns into their ongoing operations and interactions with stakeholders [Gray et al. 1996; Carrol 1998; Garriga and Melé 2004; Matacena 2005; Sacconi 2005; Arena 2006; Freeman et al. 2010]. Csr systems include training programs for employees, building of a socially responsible culture, support for Csr internal entrepreneurship, involvement of the employees in the construction/evaluation of the Csr reporting and in the Csr audit [Morgan et al. 2009; Sharma 2000]. Along with ensuring workers’ safety and security of employment, emphasis is placed on Hrm (Human Resources Management) policies, which have to be oriented toward ensuring continuous training along the entire lifetime of employees; pursuing the best equilibrium between work, family, and free time; including employees in the company’s management and benefits; enhancing personnel’s responsibility; and applying the principles of equity and equality. Stemming from this premise, the present work intends to address aspects of a firm’s Csr-orientation that touch on its relationship with employees – impacting both work and life – with particular focus on Csr projects oriented toward the family, which is conceived as a stakeholder in its own right (Corporate Family Responsibility, Cfr). Currently, very few studies address the issue of Cfr [Saraceno 2003; Donati 2003; Uhlaner et al. 2004; Iese 2008; Isfol 2009; Aidp 2010; Fondazione Vigorelli 2012; Strandberg 2009]. Consequently, this paper aims to develop a new line of research in this field.The work is part of a more ample research project, which combines deductive and inductive models of proposition development and theory construction [Denzin 1978]. The present paper aims to briefly present the theoretical framework used to interpret and analyze case-studies relative to Italian firms [Cfr 2012; Del Baldo 2013] that have been distinguished for their best practices regarding Hrm and work-family balance. Consequently, the following sections synthesize the theoretical context on which the empirical analysis is founded and develops the themes of Csr, Hrm and Cfr.