Examining Corporate Social Responsibility from a Stakeholder Viewpoint Based on an Empirical Research

In today’s complex and ever changing economic environment an organisation can only be successful, if it can meet the needs of its stakeholders. There is an even bigger ethical, social, legal and strategic pressure on the economic and social organisations. This also stands for not only the profi t-oriented corporations but also for budget authorities and any other public organisations. Several organisations have recognised the infl uence of the stakeholders and have tried to meet their needs. That means that they operate a CSR policy on a volunteer base, as the only way for survival. The CSR is not a separate task, nowadays the management of the stakeholders is part of the strategic management, as at times the interests of different groups must be attended. The present study deals with the infl uence of stakeholders on the CSR practice, it also introduces the differences in stakeholder relationship among corporations of different sizes as well as examining the characteristics of the different actors. Based on the results of the qualitative research it can be stated that a signifi cant difference can be found in the stakeholder relationship of the small- and medium size enterprises (SMEs) and of large corporations. The large corporations build their relationship in signifi cantly higher ratio with the nationwide stakeholder, whereas the SMEs encourage communication with the local stakeholders and neglect those nationwide stakeholders that are out of their operational scope. This can be said about the public sector as well, that is large corporations prefer the interaction with this sector at a higher ratio. However, it is a common characteristic of all Hungarian enterprises that they value the relationship with stakeholders of environmental importance more than the communication with stakeholders of social importance.