DOES IT PAY OFF TO BE SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE? EMPIRICAL AND ACCOUNTING EVIDENCE FROM LISTED COMPANIES

Today’s companies are doing business in an environment that, in addition to the financial aspect, evaluates various aspects of their business. One of them includes the responsibility of a company to society as a whole. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on financial performance (profitability). Corporate social responsibility was measured by using a survey questionnaire, while for financial performance, secondary data (i.e., annual reports of investigated companies) were used. The questionnaire was addressed to the Chief Accounting/Financial Officer of Croatian listed companies. The results of correlation and regression analyses show a statistically significant positive association between CSR and financial performance.