Społeczna odpowiedzialność – element zarządzania przedsiębiorstwami w Polsce?
Social responsibility – a component of enterprise management in Poland?

Summary/Abstract: Background: Managing a company requires that many aspects be taken into account, including the company’s impact on the environment. This seems to be an important argument for includ¬ing socially responsible activities in the strategy and thus in management processes. Considering the above, the article deals with corporate social responsibility, focusing on the awareness of the importance, perception, and “embedding” of this concept in management by managers of selected enterprises in Poland. Research purpose: The aim of the article was to review and systematize knowledge about CSR in Poland to determine where this concept fits in enterprise management: Is it a concept of strategic importance (inscribed in management processes)? How has the situation changed in recent years? Methods: The considerations presented in the article are based on a critical analysis of the literature on the subject and the 2016–2020 “CSR in practice” reports, and using deductive reasoning, the descriptive method, and the graphical presentation of data. The data/graphs were developed based on surveys from 2016–2020 (presented in the annual “CSR in practice” reports), addressed to enterprises by the French-Polish Chamber of Economy. The number of surveyed enterprises ranges from 56 in 2019 to 75 in 2020. In each of the surveyed years, large enterprises (employing over 250 employees) slightly dominated, with their share ranging from 51% in 2020 to 56% in 2017. The article also cites data from parallel consumer research conducted by Havas Media Group (addressed annually to approximately 1,000 adult Poles). The research aimed to determine how enterprises manage sustainable development/social responsibility (questionnaires addressed to entrepreneurs) and to determine consumers’ awareness and attitudes to corporate social involvement (questionnaires addressed to consumers). Conclusions: The analysis of the literature on the subject shows that corporate social responsibility is increasingly perceived as an element of strategy and thus an element of enterprise management; however, the data presented in the article do not fully confirm this. Some entrepreneurs/ managerial staff are aware of the importance of socially responsible activities and their impact on the company’s results, and they include them in management strategies and processes. There are companies and managers who are closer to Friedman’s statement that an enterprise has to be responsible mainly to achieve economic goals. In contrast to the literature review, based on the results of the surveys presented in the article (addressed to a selected group of entrepreneurs), one cannot speak about the widespread recognition of CSR as a management concept in Poland, about assigning it strategic importance or even increasing its rank in recent years

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