Are corporate social responsibility and environmental management ‘influencers’ of performance in companies of the energetic sector?

Abstract

AbstractPrior research has suggested that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) may affect Environmental Management (EM). Nevertheless, there has been a lack of empirical studies that have examined these relationships, specially, in companies of the energetic field. This research empirically examines whether there is a positive relationship between the implementation of a CSR culture in a company and the obtaining of better Operational Performance, as well as between CSR and EM processes and also between EM and Operational Performance. The analysis of the results obtained through the Partial Least Squares (PLS) methodology concludes that there is a positive relationship between all of them, including this paper a main contribution to Literature as it is the fact that EM plays a mediator role increasing the CSR impact over Operational Performance. The major implication derived from this study is that investments in CSR and EM practices towards all the company stakeholders should positively affect performance. Therefore, both should be equally as important as other functions of a firm.