CSR Assessment Model

The opportunities for measuring, assessing and reporting socially responsible practices are a relevant issue for modern business. They are studied by international organizations, research groups, scientists and practitioners who use various methods and measurers of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Usually their assessment models serve narrower goals – for example, certification with a CSR standard, membership in a CSR-partnership network, ranking according to a social index and others. In recent years more organizations apply CSR practices. Some of them use external professional auditors in order to judge achieved results, make their social reports and outline opportunities for improvement. However, other organizations, especially those who start to apply CSR and SMEs, prefer to carry out in-company assessment of their socially responsible behavior. This paper presents the author’s model for assessing CSR practices which is applicable for organizations of small, medium and large business. The model is meant to help managers in formulating CSR strategies and to serve as a standard for comparison which companies can follow to improve their responsible behavior. At the same time, this model is designed in such a way that it can allow non-specialists to use it easily for the objectives of in-company social audit. The paper is structured in three parts. The first one explains the theoretical assumptions in modeling the processes for assessing CSR. After that there are outlined the methodical issues concerning the models for assessing CSR as applied by international organizations, standards, contests, rating organizations, social indices, organizations for social accountability and social audit. At the end there is a characteristic of the author’s generalized model for assessing CSR and the methodology for its application.