Corporate Social Responsibility through Education and Sport. An EU Comparative Case

Starting from the need to tackle in a sustainable way the new economic and social requirements particularly induced by the recent financial crisis, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is one envisaged solution at community and organizational level, because of its win-win strategic potential. More than that, acknowledging the economic impact of strongly supporting social domains like education and sport, the European Union (EU) has designed new measures for developing the human potential during 2014-2020 period. Following these two rationales, the main research objective is to emphasize the relationship between CSR and corporate support for educational and sport projects of top performing companies in Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia in the post-crisis period. Four main issues are investigated in detail regarding the corporate support for education and sport areas through CSR initiatives, namely existence of corporate involvement, forms of commitment, reasons for engagement, and main beneficiaries of implication. The research methodology focuses on empirical and analytical perspectives, while the results show new facets and implications of CSR initiatives in education and sport domains, but also a set of similarities and differences between the analysed EU countries. Economic and social impacts are also examined, as well as future research directions.