Does the social relationship matter (1)

Abstract

A set of four articles under common title “Does the social relationship matter?” will approach the various factors and processes shaping up the SC at enterprise and regional level and consequently altering appreciably the local business growth. The first paper aims at developing a method to break down the business investments in the form of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) investments and determining the effectiveness of these investments. According to research data the planned place of socially responsible business in Lithuania helps companies to attract and retain better employees, agree with partners, to meet high standards of CSR raised by foreign customers. At the same time it reduces the risk of environmental problems and violation of worker's rights, and leads to the further rising of competitive ability and further opportunities for business development in the future, i.e. leading to rise of value added. The CSR investments in small companies differ from those in large companies, but some of the features for small companies become even more pressing. Companies that fail to fulfil their CSR activities may eventually be doomed to disappear from the market. The conclusions of the present analysis are quite important to Lithuania where a small family-based business predominates and is very sensible to the changes in internal and external social relationships.