Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility in theperspective of social economy entities: a bibliometric study

• Autor(a) principal: Tomé, Brízida
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Outros Autores: Bandeira, Ana M., Azevedo, Graça, Costa, Alberto J.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/21998
• topic: Corporate social responsibility; Sustainable development; Governance; Social economy entities; Sustainability; IPSS

AbstractWe start from the conceptual interconnection between Sustainability and CorporateSocial Responsibility, which, although continuously subject to controversy, both withinthe scope of its definition and in its performance, advocate, as the ultimate goal, humandevelopment and of the society in general, promoting the interests of the Communitieson a permanent, long-term basis and without compromising the future of the futuregenerations.In this context, we cannot fail to draw a parallel with the entities that constitute theSocial Economy Sector. The activities they carry out are of economic and social natureand must be pursued in the general interest of their members, users and beneficiaries,thus in the general interest of the Community.These institutions also reveal concerns about sustainability in all the dimensionsinvolved (economic, social and environmental), in which the organizationalperformance is particularly important, as it becomes imperative to guarantee theircontinuity, fostering and promoting their social action.We will therefore start by framing what is meant by Sustainability, Corporate SocialResponsibility and Social Economy, with a particular focus on the current requirementsof stakeholders regarding the socially responsible behaviour of the institutions as these,in turn, will entail the adoption of more comprehensive management tools, also moreefficient and transparent concerning all dimensions (economic, financial and social).It is within this framework that a project called "TFA - TheoFrameAccountability -Theoretical framework for the promotion of accountability in the social economy sector:The IPSS case" emerges, being promoted by the University of Aveiro, with theparticipation of National Confederation of Solidarity Institutions (CNIS – acronym inPortuguese), and the Polytechnic Institutes of Coimbra and Porto.This project aims to promote the accountability of the social economy sector (economic,financial and social aspects), in the Private Social Solidarity Institutions (IPSS –acronym in Portuguese), assisting them not only in fulfilling their legal obligations, butalso facilitating the reporting of results of activities carried out in a more effectivemanner and promoting transfer of knowledge (for the IPSS and also for the academiccommunity), thus contributing to the development and sustainability of theseinstitutions. The main results indicate a growing concern about sustainability and a growingpublication in this area.This paper presents a bibliometric study to evaluate the main trends of current researchon sustainability and on corporate social responsibility, thus contributing to theconstruction of the theoretical basis underlying the "TFA - TheoFrameAccountability"project.