2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Research Population
The research involved master’s students of management. The first group constituted students at the Lublin University of Technology (Poland) and the second group was made up of students studying at the Lublin University of Technology under the Erasmus+ program (exchange). The Polish group consisted of 61 people (the total number of full-time students), including 45 women and 16 men. The exchange group was very diverse in terms of nationality. Hence, the research covered all those who studied at the Lublin University of Technology at the time of the research and belonged to a relatively homogeneous group. It was composed of students from France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, with a total of 30 students, including 16 women and 14 men.
The subject of CSR was not unknown to the respondents, as everyone in the research group participated in the CSR classes. The classes lasted 45 h in total, including 15 h of lectures and 30 h of exercises. The aim of the course was for students to acquire knowledge about the essence of Corporate Social Responsibility, its role and importance in social life. The class also aimed at shaping the attitudes of socially responsible future managers, as well as developing the ability to apply knowledge to identify problems in the field of CSR and solve them. Issues undertaken during the course included the following:
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)—a historical line, definition, contemporary recognition, models and standards of social responsibility; CSR conditionings and its perception in Poland
Basic models of social responsibility; the stakeholders—CSR theory; Stakeholder management in the strategic management system of the company; the dispute over corporate social responsibility—CSR and PR
Responsible corporate management—wide and narrow view
Personnel management and CSR; conflict of interests and the employees’ and organization’s responsibilities; Human Rights as a basic responsibility toward the employees; institutionalization of ethics in management
One’s moral choices in consumer culture; modern ethical standards of the consumer culture
Environmental responsibility
Reporting as an important element of CSR strategy in organizations; social responsibility as a source of competitive advantage
A company’s development as a process of creating value for stakeholders
Participation in CSR classes was undoubtedly conducive to in-depth reflection while filling in the questionnaires, and the method of constructing the research tool also highlighted the dilemmas faced by managers.
To sum up, the respondents constituted a group that was, in some respects, homogeneous and, in other respects, diverse. Common features were age, field of study, and participation in the CSR class. Origin was the most important differentiating feature. On this basis, two groups were distinguished, conventionally called the Polish group and the Erasmus group.
2.2. Research Tool
The survey technique was used in the research. The questionnaire was based on A. Carroll’s model, according to which, CSR is a construct that includes economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic components [
32]. Developed by K. Aupperle, J. D. Hatfield, and A. Carroll [
31], the research tool was modified for the research of Brazilian management students [
5,
15]. The tool consists of 64 statements (16 for each CSR dimension), divided into 16 groups (G1–G16), each of which contains 4 statements—one for each of the components of CSR, with each statement referring to a specific group of stakeholders. Therefore, the applied research tool was reflective, that is, it was assumed that there are four dimensions of CSR and the reliability of the study was checked using factor analysis. To evaluate the statements included in a given group, a scale of constant sums was used [
33]. This means that the respondents were asked to divide a fixed sum of points (10) between four statements. In this way, they determined the relative importance of individual statements referring to the examined components. The questionnaire also contained personal characteristic questions, such as the gender and nationality of the respondents.
2.3. Selection and Application of Statistical Methods
The analysis of the collected data began with checking the reliability of four CSR scales. For this purpose, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were calculated and factor analysis was performed. The correlation coefficients between the individual dimensions of CSR (Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient) were also checked. In the next step, the average for each of the CSR dimensions was calculated—separately for the Polish group and Erasmus students. For this purpose, aggregated data was created for each CSR dimension (the sum of points assigned to statements included in a given dimension). Then, using the Student’s t-test for independent samples, the significance of differences in the assessment of the importance of the dimensions constituting individual steps in Carroll’s pyramid was checked. The null hypothesis about the lack of differences between the means in the tested pairs of CSR dimensions was tested. By carrying out the t-test, the assumption of homogeneity of variance (Levene’s test) was also checked. If the condition was not met, the Cochran–Cox test was performed. On this basis, the structure of the CSR pyramid for each study group was established. A significance level of 0.05 was assumed for both tests. Correlation coefficients between the individual dimensions of CSR (Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient) were also calculated. All calculations were made using the STATISTICA 13.1 statistical package.
The value of Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for individual scales in the group of Polish students was 0.80 for the economic dimension, 0.71 for the legal dimension, 0.64 for the philanthropic dimension, and 0.35 for the ethical dimension. Since the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the philanthropic dimension turned out to be slightly lower than the required minimum; and for the ethical dimension it was much lower, factor analysis was performed. It showed the existence of a clearly separated economic factor, which additionally included the philanthropic aspect. The second clearly distinguishing factor was the legal aspect. The third factor was not clearly distinguished (low factor loadings). Moreover, the ethical dimension with high factor loadings also appeared in factors 1 and 2.
In order to check whether the division into four dimensions was justified using factor analysis, the clustering of dimensions in all three factors was checked altogether using cluster analysis. Due to the fact that the factor loadings are real values, the k-means cluster analysis method with the Euclidean metric was applied. This method was used because it can be used to check the position of factor loadings in three factors at once. In the case of division into four groups, groupings were obtained, wherein each group one aspect constituted most of the elements. In the case of division into three groups, no clear grouping was obtained. Consequently, it was decided to distinguish four dimensions of CSR, analogous to the studies by K. Aupperle, J. D. Hatfield, and A. B. Carroll [
31], and A. da Silva Junior et al. [
5,
15]. This procedure was also dictated by the desire to compare the results with the results obtained by Brazilian researchers. This will enable a broader perspective on CSR perception by students. This is important because management departments educate future decision-makers in the national and global economies.
4. Conclusions and Discussion
The conducted analyses lead to the conclusion that A. Carroll’s pyramid model is useful in examining students’ perceptions of the role of CSR in the functioning of enterprises. This is especially important for students of management who will be responsible for the way an organization functions in the environment. In this context, it should be noted that by the surveyed students from the Polish group, the issues of ethics and profit, as well as promoting civic attitudes and profit, are perceived, to a large extent, to be contradictory (
Table 5). In the group of Erasmus students, profit and ethics are also perceived as largely antagonistic, the other pair being the legal and philanthropic dimensions (
Table 6). Aupperle, Hatfield, and Carroll [
31] indicate that the CSR model consists of economic and social responsibility (the remaining three dimensions), and therefore, the economic dimension should negatively correlate with the others. In the presented studies, such correlations were not obtained in all cases. In this context, it is worth noting that in the group of Polish students, a negative correlation was observed between the economic and legal dimensions, while in the group of Erasmus students, there was basically no correlation (−0.05). This may indicate that the Erasmus student group is more aware that it is impossible to pursue economic goals without respecting the law. These findings seem to confirm the assumption about the cultural conditioning of CSR and mark the way toward a new theoretical model of CSR, in which the legal dimension moves away from the ethical and philanthropic one and comes closer to the economic one. This finding is also a valuable premise in the design of curricula. The results obtained in the study fit into the broader context of research based on A. Carroll’s CSR model. This group includes studies conducted in Brazil and African countries.
Despite the fact that the scope of the conducted research does not allow for an unambiguous interpretation of the obtained results, they may build a valuable premise for designing curricula.
The specificity of the context of the presented research is that from the end of World War II to 1989, when Poland belonged to the camp of socialist countries whose centrally planned economies resulted in a low income for the population. Poland’s accession to the EU in 2004 highlighted the existing differences between countries such as Poland and other countries continuously operating in the free market. The differences in income and living standards in the countries of the former socialist camp compared with other countries are steadily decreasing, but the equalization of levels is not expected until several decades from now. Integration with other countries within the EU has highlighted the existing differences and, therefore, the economic dimension of CSR in Poland is perceived as a priority, all the more so as Poland is commonly perceived as a region of cheap labor for more economically developed countries.
Within this study, the detailed results of the groups of Polish and Erasmus students were not compared. The focal point was rather the layout of the CSR pyramid, the arrangement of individual layers and the differences in the assessment of individual dimensions. Assuming the usefulness of Carroll’s CSR concept, it was observed that the arrangement of individual layers is not universal. In the case of the Polish student group, the differences in the assessment of the importance of individual dimensions are quite clear, and the structure is more hierarchical. In the case of the Erasmus student group, the pyramid seems to be flattened, with the individual dimensions partially overlapping. The two groups also differ when it comes to the arrangement of individual dimensions (
Figure 2 and
Figure 3). The observed difference may result from the socio-economic context and needs specific to a given place and time.
Organizations operate in a specific environment that they not only affect but must also adapt to. Both groups of respondents were subjected to the same educational impact in the field of CSR, but they differed in origin. It seems that this factor may have contributed to the structure of the CSR pyramid specific for each group. Such conclusions are also prompted by studies among Brazilian management students, as a result of which, the authors obtained an inverted pyramid in relation to the one proposed by A. Carroll [
15]. The results proved that, in the opinion of the surveyed students, the most important dimensions of CSR are, in hierarchical order, the philanthropic, ethical, legal, and economic dimensions. This was also confirmed by the research of W. Visser [
28], who applied Carroll’s model in the study of African countries. The findings suggested that Carroll’s notion of CSR was not global. Conversely, it seems that the concept of CSR could depend on varied national contexts. The obtained results indicate the hierarchical order of the CSR pyramid, with the economic dimension at its base, and followed by the philanthropical, legal, and ethical dimensions, respectively.
Research using A. Carroll’s CSR model in developing African countries has proven the greatest importance attached to the economic dimension. Poland, unlike African countries, belongs to a group of developed countries. However, due to many years of functioning in a centrally controlled economy characterized by market shortages and low incomes of employees, it values the economic dimension analogically. The results obtained in the study of PL management students’ opinions confirm the validity of the basic assumption of A. Carroll’s model regarding the location of this dimension in the structure of the CSR pyramid. It should be emphasized, however, that this assumption applies especially to countries whose economies are considered to be developing, not developed. Moreover, it should be admitted that the system of dimensions, apart from the level of economic development, may also be influenced by other factors (e.g., cultural), which were not analyzed in this article.
In Poland so far, there has been no similar research among students in the field of management. This indicates the existence of an insight gap about their perception of CSR from the Carroll pyramid perspective. The sparse studies conducted in recent years also indicate a lack of knowledge about CSR. E. Jastrzębska [
13], referring to the study “CSR through the eyes of students”, carried out by students at the Warsaw School of Economics (SGH) in seven universities in the country, confirms this statement. Out of 1260 students of different years, only 30% declared knowledge of the CSR concept, and only one-third confirmed that their university provides opportunities to deepen the knowledge on this subject, while as many as 84% of respondents would like to learn about CSR. The deficit of knowledge about the perception of CSR by students is also proven in a study by M. Popowska [
2]; 57.5% of students did not take any course on social responsibility. The data offer a rather polarized evaluation of the quality of CSR teaching: 52.5% of students qualified it as average or above average (good or very good), against 46% who assessed it as poor or even very poor.
The study has its limitations, the main of which is that the study covered students of one course at the Faculty of Management of the Lublin University of Technology. Moreover, the group of Erasmus students who participated in the study was not a homogeneous group in terms of nationality. As one of the suggestions for further research, it could be carried out on a larger research group at the Lublin University of Technology itself, as well as at its Erasmus-partnered universities. In this context, the research presented in the article would be a pilot study.
Yet another suggestion is to extend this research geographically so that it reaches all universities conducting management studies across the region, and even nationwide.
In the context of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, it would also be worth conducting comparative studies on the perception of CSR by students in the pre- and post-pandemic periods.
We present the results of the study for the consideration of business managers so that, in order to gain the trust of stakeholders, they effectively manage CSR [
35], thus creating a better, more fair and responsible society.