Companies' Commitment on Corporate Social Responsibility: perceived benefits and barriers of SA 8000

In today's global markets, issues related to environmental sustainability, ethics, working environment conditions and security, stakeholders' relations and the protection of workers' rights have greater importance on businesses performance. For this reason the aim of this research is to analyze the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility, which incorporate all these issues, investigating the perception of Italian companies about the International standard Social Accountability 8000, voluntary standard used as a tool to certify companies' commitment on Corporate Social Responsibility. The main reasons which have driven companies to be certified has been investigated, highlighting the main benefits and limitations resulted from the certification. Furthermore the presence of additional social responsibility practices adopted by companies in the Italian context has been analyzed.