Corporate Social Responsibility Education and Research in Portuguese Business Schools

Abstract

This descriptive study explores the state of CSR education and research in Portugal. It aims to depict the state of CSR in Portugal, in particular in what concerns the nature and the extent of education and research on CSR being undertaken in Portugal. The methodology used includes analysis of relevant literature and of business schools’ websites, and a survey by questionnaire among students at the business school at which the authors of this chapter teach and research. In terms of CSR practices, there is still some focus on social issues, given the state of development of the Portuguese economy. There are signs of CSR having reached a reasonable level of maturity. Although CSR education and research seem to be reasonably well developed in the leading business schools, the same is not the case with other schools. Research on CSR is concentrated in the schools in which CSR education is more developed.

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1 Introduction

Business schools’ faculty and students have been paying increasing attention to business ethics, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate sustainability (Doh & Tashman, 2014). To a large extent this has occurred as a consequence of the numerous financial scandals that have taken place around the world (Enron, WorldCom, Parmalat, Siemens, etc.). The fact that many of the perpetrators of the crimes that originated these scandals were educated in said schools led to the idea of holding these schools accountable for such scandals (Ghoshal, 2005; Mitroff, 2004; Swanson & Frederick, 2003). Mitroff (2004, p. 185) claimed that these schools’ educators, among which he counted himself, were, at best, “guilty of having provided an environment where the Enrons and the Andersens of the world could take root and flourish”. At worst, they could be considered “guilty of being active accomplices and co-conspirators in their shoddy and criminal behaviour” (ibid.).

Somewhat similar to Matten and Moon’s (2004) approach, CSR is used in this text as an umbrella term for business ethics, CSR and corporate sustainability. These concepts are viewed has pertaining to the ethical role of corporations in society as well as to their role in the preservation of resources for future generations (Christensen, Pierce, Hartman, Hoffman, & Carrier, 2007, p. 348).

We consider CSR topics of particular relevance in management education, given that those who are studying at the schools responsible for the education of these matters are likely to have the responsibility of implementing and managing CSR activities or of conceiving and implementing related public policies. Moreover, not only we accept the premiss that educators in business schools have the responsibility of teaching CSR (Gioia, 2003), but we also agree with those that view this responsibility as one of the main missions of such schools (Mitroff, 2011).

A historical perspective makes clear that business education has followed a reactive path in what pertains to the introduction of CSR, which has only occurred when corporations felt the need to respond to changing social demands (Sharma & Hart, 2014). It was only during the 1960s and 1970s that business schools began to add courses in business ethics and CSR to the curriculum, mainly in response to critiques from society (ibid.).

The theme of this text is the state of CSR education and research in business schools in Portugal. We address two main research questions. First, what is the current status of CSR in Portugal, in particular in what concerns the nature and the extent of education and research on CSR being undertaken in the major Portuguese business schools? Second, what is the current status of CSR education in the business school at which we teach, the School of Economics and Management of University of Porto (SEM.UP)?

The remainder of the text is organized as follows. After providing a perspective on the current state of affairs regarding CSR practices and policies in Portugal by way of background, the next section proceeds to offer information on the state of CSR education and research in Portugal. Thereafter follows a section on CSR education at the SEM.UP, where we teach and research. The subsequent section reports the results of a survey by questionnaire among students at SEM.UP on CSR education at this school. Finally some concluding remarks are offered.

2 CSR Education and Research in Portugal

2.1 Background: CSR Practices and Policies in Portugal

Regarding current CSR practices in Portugal, Branco (2015) contends that some aspects of it are well developed. CSR reporting is probably the aspect which is best developed. Moreover, Portuguese leading companies in terms of reputation for sustainability leadership are also worldwide leaders. For example, in 2014, three large Portuguese companies (PT, EDP and GALP Energia) are listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI). One of these companies, GALP Energia, is listed among Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World. In addition, there is a significant presence of CSR within Portuguese SMEs’ reality, where it is considered an important internal management resource (Santos, 2011).

Among industrialized countries, Portugal seems to have been one of the latest to jump on the bandwagon of CSR (Rego, Cunha, Costa, Gonçalves, & Cabral-Cardoso, 2006). It was only in the beginning of the twenty-first century that important modifications happened and manifestations of media interest on CSR increased, as has happened with the attention given by academics to the topic and with the engagement with CSR by corporations (ibid.). Leandro and Rebelo (2011) underline the importance of the Lisbon Summit, which has occurred in March 2000, and the publication of the European Commission’s Green Paper on Promoting a European Framework on CSR in 2001, as having major importance in terms of the uptake of CSR in Portugal. In effect, some important events pertaining to the development of CSR in Portugal happened just after: the Business Council for Sustainable Development Portugal (BCSD-P) has been created in 2001; in December 2002, Novadelta became the first Portuguese company to be certified under the SA 8000. In addition, the definition of CSR which is dominant in Portugal is that offered by the European Commission in the Green Paper: CSR is defined as “a concept whereby companies decide voluntarily to contribute to a better society and a cleaner environment” (European Commission (EC), 2001, p. 5).

In what follows, to depict the state of CSR practices in Portugal, the measure of CSR engagement based on four company-level sets of indicators developed by Midttun, Gautesen, and Gjølberg (2006), which has been subsequently used by other researchers (Gjølberg, 2009; Skouloudis, Evangelinos, Nikolaou, & Filho, 2011), is used. This measure includes the following indicators: (1) inclusion in the DJSI, the FTSE4Good Index and the list of the “ Global 100 most sustainable companies”; (2) adhesion to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD); (3) CSR reporting, based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) sustainability reporting guidelines and KPMG survey outcomes; (4) adoption of CSR Standards, namely the environmental management standard ISO 14001.

Inclusion in Relevant Indices

Nowadays, there are some Portuguese companies present in relevant indices. In 2014, there was one Portuguese company in the Global 100, three companies in the DJSI, and three companies in the FTSE4Good Europe Index. One company, EDP, was considered one of the electrical companies with better performance on the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes in the past few years, and in 2014 was the leader of the Utilities Sector.

Adhesion to the UNGC and the WBCSD

As mentioned above, BCSD-P has been created in 2001. It is one of the Regional Network Partners of the WBCSD. Six members are also amongst WBCSD members. By the end of 2014, according to the information provided in the searchable database provided in the website of the UNGC (http://www.unglobalcompact.org), only 47 Portuguese companies had adhered to the UNGC.

CSR Reporting

In terms of CSR reporting, according to KPMG (2011, p. 4), Portugal may be included in a group of countries labelled as ‘Leading the Pack’ group. Companies from such countries “have demonstrated both strong communication and professionalism over time” (ibid.). The more recent KPMG report (KPMG, 2013), places Portugal in third place in term of percentage of companies that use the Sustainability Reporting Guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative (over 90 % of the companies do so).

Adoption of CSR Standards

Ramos, Cecílio, Douglas, and Caeiro (2013) conducted an analysis of environmental management systems (EMS) and environmental performance evaluation (EPE) frameworks usage in Portugal. They reported that all companies which have implemented or were in the course of implementing an environmental management system adopted the ISO 14001.

At this point, one should mention that, in the wake of the development of ISO 26000, a certifiable CSR standard has been developed in Portugal by the Portuguese Business Ethics Association (APEE), the Portuguese Standard on Social Responsibility (NP 4469), published in 2008 (part 1) and 2010 (part 2).

In spite of being considered a high-income country, Portugal’s level of development remains low when compared to the majority of the other European countries. Given this state of affairs, it comes as no surprise that the fight against exclusion and poverty and corporate community involvement are major focuses of CSR in Portugal (Europe, 2010). This is certainly related to the main characteristics of the Portuguese welfare state, which has been presented by Steurer, Martinuzzi, and Margula (2012, p. 215) as: “fragmented and ‘clientelistic’ support focusing on income maintenance (pensions)”; and “still under development, making older systems of social support (family, church) indispensable”.

Portugal has been identified as being among the countries in Europe that introduced CSR policies the latest (Albareda, Lozano, & Ysa, 2007). Steurer et al. (2012) report that the Mediterranean countries, including Portugal, are the less active in using public policies to promote CSR. They are only surpassed in this by transition countries.

There are in Portugal several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) devoted to CSR. We have already referred the BCSD Portugal, which is the Portuguese chapter of the WBCSD and the most important CSR network in Portugal. However, there are a few other organizations deserving recognition. One is a network of public institutions, corporations, higher education institutions and NGOs called Rede Nacional de Responsabilidade Social (RSO PT), that has as its main goal the promotion of social responsibility of Portuguese organizations. Another is Grace—Grupo de Reflexão e Apoio à Cidadania Empresarial, established in 2000 by a group of companies, mostly multinational, as one of the first NGOs in Portugal to promote CSR. There is also a Portuguese NGO established to fight corruption, which is the representation office of Transparency International in Portugal: TI—Transparência e Integridade, Associação Cívica.

We cannot fail to mention the Portuguese Business Ethics Association (APEE). It was created in 2002 with the aim of promoting ethics and social responsibility in companies and other organisations. APEE has obtained from the Portuguese Institute for Quality (IPQ) the quality of being responsible in Portugal for the standardization in the fields of Ethics and Social Responsibility. It has ensured the Portuguese participation in the ISO 26000 development process, and it has developed the Portuguese Standard on Social Responsibility (NP 4469), mentioned above.

The Observatory in Economics and Management of Fraud (OBEGEF) is another NGO deserving mentioning, not the least because it has as its host institution the University of Porto, more specifically its School of Economics and Management, where it has its headquarters. OBEGEF has been created in November 2008 as a non-profit private law association having as stated purpose to “promote interdisciplinary research on non-observed economy and fraud in Portugal, as well as in the European and world contexts, promote education on these themes, create networks and establish other types of relations with similar institutions, as well as provide services in line with the research”.

2.2 Some Notes on CSR Education in Portugal

Moreira (1996), probably the first study devoted to the state of the teaching and research on ethics in Portuguese business schools, reports that a course devoted to ethics seems to have been introduced for the first time only in the school year 1985/1986 at the two economics and management schools of the Catholic University of Portugal (one in Oporto and the other in Lisbon). Of the 24 business schools surveyed by Moreira (1996), only eight had an ethics-related course.

By the end of 2014, according to the information provided in the searchable database provided in the website of the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) (http://www.unprme.org), only seven Portuguese business schools were participants of this initiative (Table 1). Two have joined in 2011, three in 2013 and two in 2014. Of these seven schools only three are communicating participants: the two that adhered to the initiative in 2011 (AESE Escola de Direção e Negócios and ISCTE Business School), and one that adhered in 2013 (Nova School of Business and Economics). SEM.UP, the school at which the authors of this text teach and research joined in April 2013.

Table 1 Portuguese participants in the PRME

Three Portuguese business schools have been included in the past few years in the European Business School Rankings of the Financial Times: Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics, Nova School of Business and Economics, and Porto Business School. The two latter are adherents of the PRME.

Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics seems to be the school where CSR education and research is most developed. It offers courses in Ethics and Social Responsibility in both the Economics and the Management undergraduate degrees. It offers CSR related courses in almost all of their master degrees as well as in their executive masters and in their international MBA. An additional sign of the importance attributed to CSR education and research at this school is the existence of a Centre for Ethics, Business and Economics since 2007, which has as its mission the development of research, educational and editorial initiatives related to CSR.

Nova School of Business and Economics does not offer any specific course on CSR in its undergraduate degrees of Economics and Management, although some topics are likely to be addressed in a course offered in both degrees called Communication, Leadership & Ethics. Courses on CSR are offered in the masters in Management as well as in the MBA.

Porto Business School offers only postgraduate and executive programs. From the three schools included in the Financial Times ranking it seems to be the one where CSR education and research is less developed. It offers CSR courses in its two MBAs. It also offers CSR courses in some of its post-graduate programmes, such as the ones in HR Management and in Internal Audit & Risk Management.

Besides these three schools, and of SEM.UP, to which a specific subsequent section is devoted, Católica Porto School of Business and Economics must be pointed out. The undergraduate programmes of Economics and of Management offer a mandatory course in Social Philosophy and Ethics.

ISCTE Business School, ISEG, and University of Coimbra’s School of Economics and Management, University of Aveiro’s Department of Economics, Management and Industrial Engineering and AESE, Escola de Direção e Negócios, also deserve being mentioned. ISCTE Business School offers a master in Business Administration which has a mandatory course on Ethics, Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility. Notwithstanding, its undergraduate degrees do not offer mandatory CSR courses. ISEG offers several CSR courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. According to information provided by ISEG in the PRME website, 30 % of its master degrees include a CSR course. Unfortunately its undergraduate degrees do not include any mandatory course on CSR. Special mention must be given to ISEG’s post graduate Program in Sustainability Management. University of Coimbra’s School of Economics and Management offers only elective CSR courses. It offer a master degree in Energy for Sustainability. University of Aveiro’s Department of Economics, Management & IE offers a master degree in Sustainable Energy Systems and a PhD in Energy Systems and Climate Change. AESE’s MBA and all the Executive Education Programs include courses of Ethics and Social Responsibility and its MBA Program includes a specific discipline called Management of Social Organizations.

2.3 An Analysis of CSR Research in Portugal

To analyse the development of the research on CSR by authors from Portuguese business schools, we have used the list of journals considered by Crane, McWilliams, Matten, Moon, and Siegel (2008) as the most likely places to have this type of research published: Business and Society; Business and Society Review; Journal of Business Ethics; Business Ethics Quarterly; Business Ethics: A European Review; Corporate Governance: the International Journal of Business in Society; Journal of Corporate Citizenship; Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management (previously Eco-management and Auditing). Although these may be considered the main CSR journals, we also considered a number of other journals which are important outlets for such type of research. We added the following business related journals used by Visser (2006): Business Strategy and the Environment and Corporate Environmental Strategy. Only publications of authors affiliated in Portuguese institutions were considered. As this methodology has offered results which the authors of this chapter deemed as sufficient to analyse research on CSR being undertaken in the major Portuguese business schools and to establish differences in terms of the quantity and quality of such research, other outlets for research were not explored.

As one may see in Table 2, between 2000 and 2014 only 32 CSR related publications authored by researchers from Portuguese institutions were found. Data shows some evolution in the capacity of Portuguese researchers to have their CSR research published in relevant international journals.

Table 2 Publications over time

Table 3 shows that Portuguese researchers were able to publish in only five of the journals analysed. They were able to publish their research in only one of the leading four CSR journals [at least, according to Lockett, Moon, and Visser (2006)]: Business and Society; Business and Society Review; Journal of Business Ethics; Business Ethics Quarterly. They were able to publish a lot of articles in the Journal of Business Ethics, which accounts for 69 % of the publications, followed by the journal Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management (including the Eco-Management and Auditing) and Business Strategy and the Environment, with respectively 4 (13 %) and 3 (9 %). The other three publications have appeared in only two journals: Corporate Governance and Business Ethics: A European Review.

Table 3 CSR papers by journal, 2000–2014

To analyse the focus of the research, we considered four areas: social, environmental, social and environmental and ethics. “Social” refers to employee related issues, community relations, corporate philanthropy, and ethical investment. “Environmental” refers to issues pertaining to things such as environmental responsibility, environmental protection, and environmental pollution. “ Ethics” refers to issues such as business ethics, morals, and values. Table 4 shows that publications focusing on ethical subjects dominate the research published (47 %).

Table 4 Focus of the publications

We used Lockett et al.'s (2006, p. 118) distinction between empirical and theoretical types of knowledge. We also distinguished, as these authors did, between quantitative and qualitative studies, in the case of empirical research, and normative and non-normative studies, in the case of theoretical studies. Non-normative studies are devoted to the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’, whereas normative studies stress the ‘oughts’ and the ‘shoulds’ (Lockett et al., 2006). As shown in Table 5, 56 % of the articles were empirical and 44 % theoretical. Of the empirical papers, only 12.5 % were qualitative (two articles).

Table 5 Orientation of the publications by journal

Data in Table 6 shows that there are two business schools deserving mention in what concerns the presence in terms of publications in relevant international journal. They are the SEM.UP and the Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics. Members of their faculty are responsible for seven publications each. No publication is the result of collaborative work between researchers of these two schools, which means that these two schools are responsible for 14 publications.

Table 6 Leading schools in terms of publications

There seems to be a high degree of concentration in terms of research (Table 7). There are three authors associated with five or more articles, one associated with four papers and one associated with three. They all are from the schools mentioned in Table 6. One should note that only two of these authors publish together. A. Rego and M. Pina e Cunha have co-authored four articles. All authors in Table 7 are from schools in which CSR education is well developed.

Table 7 Concentration in research

3 CSR Education at the SEM.UP

According to Moreira (1996), the introduction of a course devoted to ethics at the School of Economics and Management of the University of Porto dates from 1987, when the Management degree was established. At the time the degree runned for 5 years and it was decided to introduce in the curriculum a course in Ethics and Professional Deontology in the 5th year. It was thus in the school year 1991/1992 that the course was offered. This course was mandatory, it had the duration of a semester and two weekly classes of 1 h each. In the school year 1994/1995 this course was substituted by a similar course with the name of Economic and Business Ethics, with similar duration but with 3 h a week. The next change dates from the school year 2004/2005, when the course was renamed to Business Ethics. In 2008/2009 the course was renamed Ethics and Social Responsibility. The next big change occurred in 2012/2013, when the hours devoted to it decreases from 3 to 1.5 h a week. All these courses were mandatory.

Meanwhile, in the school year 2008/2009 a master degree in Environmental Economics and Management (MEEM) was established. This degree offered four CSR related courses: three mandatory, Environmental Accounting and Sustainability Reporting, Environmental Management and Auditing and Green Marketing; the other, elective, Environmental Responsibility and Financial Markets. In the school year 2010/2011, Environmental Accounting and Sustainability Reporting and Environmental Responsibility and Financial Markets where extinguished and replaced by a mandatory course on Social Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting, which is still in place. All these courses runned for a semester with three weekly hours.

In the school year 2011/2012, an elective course on Ethics and Social Responsibility in Management, of 3 h a week, was established in the master degree of Economics and Management of Human Resources. In the school year 2012/2013 this course became mandatory and the weekly hours devoted to the course decreased to 1.5.

Nowadays, there are five CSR related courses, and all are mandatory (see Table 8). One, the Ethics and Social Responsibility course, is offered at the undergraduate level in the degree in Management. The other four are offered at the graduate level: three (Social Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting, Green Marketing and Environmental Management and Auditing) in the MEEM, and one (Ethics and Social Responsibility in Management) in the master degree in Economics and Management of Human Resources.

Table 8 CSR related courses at SEM.UP

The Ethics and Social Responsibility course offered in the undergraduate degree in Management aims at providing an overview of ethical issues and dilemmas at the level of the organization and society at large, ranging from the basic concepts of moral philosophy to those of CSR. The course is organized in three modules, each taught by a different lecturer:

• Module I is devoted to traditional theories in social and economic ethics;

• Module II is dedicated to the concepts of ethics and business ethics, analysing ethical problems and ethical dilemmas, as well as conflicts of interest and the ethical decision-making process;

• Module III focus on corporate social responsibility.

One should note that there are two mandatory courses in the undergraduate degree in Management that integrate CSR topics. The most important is Corporate Strategy, offered in the third and final year of the degree, which mentions explicitly in its programme the topic of Social Responsibility and Ethics. The other course which integrates CSR topics is Human Resources Management, also offered in the final year of the degree.

The Social Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting course aims to provide students with knowledge on the engagement in CSR and the reporting thereof by contemporary organizations. It also aims to promote critical reflection on these practices as ever-evolving organizational practices.

The Ethics and Social Responsibility in Management’s objectives are to raise awareness of ethical issues in work relations and discuss the ethical dimension of human resource management, and interpret individual behaviour from an ethical viewpoint, and assess the ethical implications of management decisions and, in particular, of human resource management decisions.

The Green Marketing course aims at providing students with the understanding of basic conceptual tools of marketing and also of its specificity when related to environmental and sustainability issues. The Environmental Management and Auditing course’s aim is to equip students with the knowledge and skills required to perform audits of environmental management systems, in order to accomplish with environmental targets and sustainability.

It is important to note that in these master degrees, a few other mandatory courses integrate CSR topics. In the MEEM, that is the case with Environmental Economics and Sustainable Development. In the Master in Economics and Management of Human Resources, that is the case with Human Resources Management.

Some of the other master degrees offered at the SEM.UP include mandatory courses which integrate CSR topics in its programmes (see Table 9).

Table 9 Other master degree mandatory courses at SEM.UP integrating CSR topics

Recently, as reported above, SEM.UP has adhered to the Principles for Responsible Management Education. The information offered by the institution (see http://www.unprme.org/participants/view-participants.php?partid = 2964) mentions the achievements obtained thus far:

• 1. courses in three programmes that cover CSR topics;

• 2. the development of a project to promote Financial Literacy in Portugal;

• 3. the existence of faculty involved in public interventions in the field;

• 4. hosting and supporting students activities on these themes, such as:

  • a. Volunteering—The students can participate in several volunteer activities in order to promote social responsibility and sustainability;

  • b. NGO’s Consultancy—The students can make free consultancy to Non-Governmental Organizations;

  • c. Hosting the Portuguese Chapter group of the student’s organization ShARE.

• 5. Hosting the OBEGEF—Observatory in Economics and Management of Fraud;

• 6. Having faculty involved in research activities and publication on CSR topics.

We would like to stress two of these aspects. The first pertains to the research on CSR made by the faculty. As we reported previously SEM.UP is among the leaders in Portugal in terms of number of articles published in relevant international journals. The second has to do with the fact that this institution hosts one important independent research association, the OBEGEF, of which several faculty members are associates and which develops important initiatives pertaining to the knowledge about the Portuguese reality in terms of fraud, corruption and non-observed economy.

CSR education at SEM.UP has been invariably initiated by individual faculty members and the leadership of school. The drivers for the success of such education pertain mainly to its importance in terms of international accreditation and inclusion in business school rankings. At the moment, there are no centres or institutes to support CSR education and research, and there is no accreditation, award, or label of university in terms of CSR education activities.

4 Survey on CSR Education at SEM.UP

4.1 Data and Sample Collection

The questionnaire used in the survey reported in this section has been developed from existing scales (Aiman-Smith, Bauer, & Cable, 2001; Etheredge, 1999; Maignan & Ferrell, 2000; Webb, Mohr, & Harris, 2008). It was conceived to be administered to students in all the higher education institutions participating in the international study of which this volume is the result.

The questionnaire has been translated into Portuguese and passed on to students from the Economics and the Management undergraduate programmes offered at the SEM.UP. These programmes are the only undergraduate programmes at this school and have a duration of 3 years.

Given that the Management degree offers a course on Ethics and Social Responsibility in the second semester of the third year and the questionnaire was passed during the first semester, we have also collected data from graduate students that were ungraduated students at the school. Their undergraduate programme was also recorded and they were treated as fourth year students, for comparison purposes. The students were randomly selected in proportion with their existing distribution between years and undergraduate programmes (Table 10).

Table 10 Sample

Data shows that the average age of the respondents is 20.5 years (SD = 2.33). 56 % of them are females and 44 % are males. The gender proportion is approximately the same in both programmes (53 % females versus 47 % males in the Economics programme and 60 % females versus 40 % males in the Management programme).

4.2 Descriptive Analysis

4.2.1 SR Education

Tables 11 and 12 report data on the perceptions of the students regarding the quantity and quality of the CSR education received. Both frequencies and mean/SD values show that CSR education received by the respondents is scanty, whether it is analysed in terms of number and duration of courses or of variety and overall evaluation of its quality (mean 2.12, SD 1.08).

Table 11 Quality/Quantity of CSR education (yes/no questions)

Table 12 Quality/Quantity of CSR education (quantitative variables)

Table 13 shows that students in the third and fourth years perceive higher quantity and variety in the CSR education when compared with first and second years’ students. This is consistent with the fact that a course on Ethics and Social Responsibility is offered in the third year of the degree in management. It also shows a promising increase in the involvement in CSR-related projects, mainly in the two final grades. However, responses reveal that there is not much contact of students to CSR-related topics or activities while in internships in companies.

Table 13 Student enrolment grade and quality of received CSR education

4.2.2 Other Measurements

The CSR consumer attitude scale, with 13 items and two subscales (Table 14), was taken from the CSR Performance subscale of Webb et al. (2008), and measured using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never true) to 5 (always true). The other scales (importance of CSR for the respondents, CSR prospective employee attitude and CSR perception scales) were adapted from the scales proposed by Etheredge (1999), Aiman-Smith et al. (2001) and Maignan and Ferrell (2000) and measured using also a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Table 14 shows, for each one these scales and of their subscales, the number of items, the mean, standard deviation and reliability values.

Table 14 Descriptive statistics and reliability analysis for scales and subscales

For all the scales and subscales, the reliability values are greater than 0.64 which are acceptable compared to a minimum recommended value of 0.6 (Hair, Black, Babin, & Anderson, 2009).

4.3 Statistical Analysis

The research hypotheses to be tested in this study are the following:

• H1: An increase in the importance of CSR for respondents is related to an increase in consumer support for CSR to internal stakeholders and consumer support for CSR to external stakeholders.

• H2: An increase in the importance of CSR for respondents is related to an increase in organizational attractiveness and job pursuit intentions.

• H3: An increase in the quantity of received CSR education is related to an increase in the perceptions of the importance of the economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic dimensions of CSR.

• H4: Higher levels in the quality/variety of received CSR education are related to higher levels in the perceptions of the importance of the economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic dimensions of CSR.

• H5: Higher levels in the quality/variety of received CSR education are related to higher levels in the consumer support for CSR to internal stakeholders and consumer support for CSR to external stakeholders.

• H6: Higher levels in the quality/variety of received CSR education are related to higher levels in the organizational attractiveness and job pursuit intentions.

To analyse the first two hypotheses presented above, several linear regressions were conducted having as independent variable the importance of CSR for the respondents and as dependent variables the consumer attitude subscales, for the first hypothesis, and the CSR prospective employee attitude subscales, for the second hypothesis. Both models were statistically significant (p-value <0.001). The results are summarized in Table 15 and provide some support for both hypotheses.

Table 15 Regression models for the first and the second hypotheses (independent variable: importance of CSR for the respondents)

All the relevant assumptions were verified: the independence of the errors (Durbin–Watson test results all close to 2) and normal distribution of the errors (normal P-P probability plots).

Regarding the third hypothesis, it was not possible to detect a statistically significant relationship between the perception of the importance of the CSR dimensions and the duration of the CSR education received. Similar results were obtained for other quantitative measurements, such as the total duration of CSR projects, the number of obligatory/elective courses, the total number of courses or the total number of years with some type of CSR education. Hence, the third hypothesis was not confirmed.

To test hypotheses 4, 5 and 6, a set of t-tests was implemented having as dependent variables the subscales mentioned in each hypothesis, and having as independent (grouping) variable the yes/no questions. For the cases where the variables had the homogeneity of variances assumption violated (as assessed by the Levene’s test, using p > 0.05), the Satterthwaite variance estimator was used. For the cases where the variables were not normally distributed (as assessed by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, using p > 0.05) a non-parametric Mann–Whitney test was conducted afterwards to validate the t-tests’ results. In all those cases, the Mann–Whitney gave the same statistically significant results.

Results (Table 16) provide some support to H5 and H6 (all subscales) and to H4 (the exception is the economic responsibility dimension).

Table 16 Results of the t tests (H4, H5, H6)

Table 17 summarizes all the key results of this study.

Table 17 Summary of the results from the hypotheses testing

5 Concluding Remarks

In this chapter we have provided some information on CSR practices, education and research in Portugal. We have showed that although having jumped later than many other European countries on the CSR bandwagon, Portugal shows nowadays developed CSR practices. Some of its larger corporations are even among the worldwide leading companies in terms of CSR reputation. In addition, CSR seems to be among the concerns of the managers of many Portuguese SMEs.

Regarding CSR education, it seems to be a concern of the leading Portuguese business schools at least since the mid-1980s. Nowadays, some of its leading schools present a modern CSR education. Research concentrates in the schools which present more developed CSR education. Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics and SEM.UP are testimony of this reality. These schools are leaders in Portugal both in terms of CSR education and in terms of CSR research. In addition, the most visible publications seem to be the result of the work of only a few individuals.

SEM.UP seems to fare well. However, much remains to be done at SEM.UP, both in terms of education and in terms of research. Many of the master degrees offered would benefit enormously from the existence of a CSR course, such as the case of the master in Management and the master in Economics and Administration. The creation of a research centre devoted to CSR would allow a further development of research in this area and would permit to combat the concentration in the research that exists in the school.

At the national level, we believe that the introduction of mandatory CSR courses in the undergraduate and master degrees in management where they do not exist is a must. Also important is the creation of a network of researchers to combat the extant concentration in the research.

Results of a survey to students at SEM.UP reveal that CSR education received at this school is perceived as scanty, both in terms of number and duration of courses and of variety and overall evaluation of its quality. It is thus not surprising that findings reveal that there is no significant relationship between the quantity of received CSR education and perceptions of the importance of the economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic dimensions of CSR. The quality/variety of received CSR education seems to be only partially related to perceptions of such importance, to consumer support for CSR to internal stakeholders and to external stakeholders, and to organizational attractiveness and job pursuit intentions.

Results also show that the importance of CSR for respondents is positively related to consumer support for CSR to internal stakeholders and consumer support for CSR to external stakeholders, as well as that the importance of CSR for respondents is positively related to organizational attractiveness and job pursuit intentions.