Corporate social responsibility: mapping its social meaning

Purpose – Thepurposeof thispaperisto addressthesocialmeaningofcorporatesocialresponsibility (CSR) and improve understanding of this concept. Design/methodology/approach – A free association task was completed by a sample of 275 individuals, mostly employees from different industries, who were given “socially responsible corporation” as the stimulus. Findings – The results elicit three distinct views of a socially responsible corporation. Some individuals consider a socially responsible corporation to be one that undertakes its business operations in an efﬁcient and ethical manner. Others see it as an organisation that takes an active role in contributing to the well being of society and behaves in an ecologically friendly way and acts in the ﬁeld of social solidarity. For yet another set of participants a socially responsible corporation is one that adopts human resources practices that demonstrate respect and concern for the well being of employees and their families. Research limitations/implications – The socialmeaning of CSR includes ideas that to some extent mirror the conceptualisation introduced by previous theoretical models. However, this paper suggests that the translation of the theoretical models into instruments addressing stakeholders’ perceptions of CSR requires closer scrutiny and validation through contextual (e.g. national) adaptations. Originality/value – The paper contributes by providing additional knowledge on the social meaning of CSR in a European country, Portugal, and not only on Anglo-Saxon countries, therefore, introducing speciﬁc situational challenges. de una manera ecolo´gica y actu´a en el a´mbito de la solidaridad social. Por otro conjunto de los participantes, una empresa socialmente responsable es aquella que adopta pra´cticas de recursos humanos que demuestran respeto y preocupacio´n por el bienestar de los empleados y sus familias. limitaciones/implicaciones de la investigacio´n – El signiﬁcado social de la responsabilidad social de las empresas incluye ideas que, en cierta medida, reﬂeja la conceptualizacio´n introducida por los anteriores modelos teo´ricos. Sin embargo, este estudio sugiere que la traduccio´n de los modelos teo´ricos a los instrumentos que abordan las percepciones de los interesados de la responsabilidad social corporativa requiere una inspeccio´n detallado y validacio´n a trave´s de las adaptaciones (por ejemplo, nacionales). performance and ethics”. It closer to traditional representation corporate responsibility proﬁciency of business, the of ethical considerations on the way business is conducted) in more recent the of working conditions that The results have not provided support for signiﬁcant socio-professional variations in scores for either dimension. The only exception is the age variation in the scores of the “concern about occupational safety and health vs economic performance and ethics” dimension. The results showed that the younger participants associate a socially responsible corporation with economic performance and ethical posture while older respondents associate it with ideas related to occupational safety and health and human resource management. A reasonable justiﬁcation for this is that the younger group is predominantly composed of students who have still not acquired a strong perspective of the internal dimensions of labour. Working conditions are, conversely, very salient to the older group who are already engaged in working activities.

Recent research on CSR has centred largely on the potential benefits for organisations and the relationship between economic and social performance (Orlitzky et al., 2003;Waddock and Graves, 1997;Wu, 2006). Improved relations between corporations and their multiple stakeholders is one of the most cited benefits of CSR (European Commission, 2001;Kotler and Lee, 2005;Observatory of European Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, 2002;Rego et al., 2003). It is suggested that stakeholders' adherence to the principles and values underlying CSR is extremely important for the diffusion and success of this perspective in business citizenship. Research on this specific subject shows that stakeholders' support for socially responsible corporate practices is related to their understanding of what it means to be socially responsible (Becker-Olsen et al., 2006;Brown and Dacin, 1997;Creyer and Ross, 1997;Maignan, 2001;Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001). For instance, research suggests that consumers punish firms that are perceived to be insincere in their social involvement (Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001); employees' commitment to the organisation is related to the perceptions of their firm's social responsibility (Brammer et al., 2007); prospective employees are more attracted to more socially responsible corporations (Greening and Turban, 2000); and investors often prefer socially screened investment funds (Stone, 2001). Therefore, these various groups of stakeholders, together with other interested parties may play a crucial role in stimulating and pressing corporations to engage in socially responsible practices in different domains.
In light of the tensions between global market forces and context-specific corporate activities, research also needs to address issues such as whether corporate social MRJIAM 8,2 responsibilities are perceived in the same manner across borders (Maignan, 2001). Since most CSR literature originates from Anglo-Saxon countries, notably the USA, lack of evidence about other geographic and cultural contexts (Branco and Rodrigues, 2008;Maignan, 2001;Maignan and Ferrell, 2001) hinders the advance of knowledge and theory on CSR responding to specific situational challenges. This study contributes to this line of research by providing additional knowledge on the social meaning of CSR in a European country, namely Portugal.
Like some other European countries [1], the interest in and the implementation of the CSR philosophy in Portugal is quite recent, and as a result, national research on the subject is scarce. The main aim of the first empirical studies, which appeared only in the last few years, was to characterise the involvement of national corporations in socially responsible practices (Abreu et al., 2005;Gago et al., 2005;Pinto, 2004;Rego et al., 2003;Santos, 2005;Salmones et al., 2005). At the same time, a number of private and public initiatives aimed at raising awareness of the importance of CSR have triggered the debate on both its implementation and adequate assessment models (Neves and Bento, 2005;Santos, 2005). The present research focuses on characterising the social meaning of CSR, a concept that has been acquiring greater visibility in Portuguese society. The main aim is to map the constellations of ideas associated with this concept and to identify the corporate behaviours that are understood to demonstrate social responsibility.
For this purpose, we start by giving a brief definition of CSR and the main categories that characterise socially responsible practices. We then summarise some literature about stakeholders' perception and attitudes towards CSR. The last section of the introduction presents the main features of the study.
Corporate social responsibility CSR is a broad concept that comprises the whole set of philosophical and normative issues relating to the role of business in society (Maignan and Ferrell, 2001)[2]. Its core assumptions are closely linked to the principles of sustainable development, namely that corporations should make decisions based not only on financial and economic factors (e.g. profits, return on investment, dividend payments and others), but also on the immediate and long-term social, environmental and other consequences of their activities. This idea is in line with the conceptualisation proposed by McWilliams and Siegel (2001); it is also emphasised in one of the most popular definitions of CSR advanced by the European Commission (2001) which states that CSR consists of the voluntary and strategic adoption of management practices that, going beyond legal prescriptions, aim at contributing significantly to sustainable development.
The concept of CSR is grounded on stakeholder theory, a management philosophy that defends a responsible corporate posture towards all individuals or groups that are somehow affected by or that affect corporate decisions and activities (Clarkson, 1995;Donaldson and Preston, 1995). Within the stakeholder theory framework, the manager's role is not only to serve the interests of stockholders but also to search for a balance between the needs and demands of multiple stakeholders. This theory thus clearly assumes that corporations have social responsibilities towards society, a position that contrasts with the more traditional vision of business management whereby the main responsibility of business is to maximise stockholders' profit within the legal boundaries (Friedman, 1962, 1970, cited by Wartick and Cochran, 1985.

Corporate social responsibility
Some authors highlight the need to conduct stakeholder management in a virtuous manner so that the process does not result in corporate irresponsibility (Greenwood, 2007), revealing its darker side (Cennamo et al., 2009). CSR becomes visible in daily business life through the development of a diverse set of corporate practices. These can be organised in several dimensions and/or categories of CSR. Carroll's (1979Carroll's ( , 1991Carroll's ( , 1999 conceptualisation is probably the most widely accepted model of CSR. The model was proposed in the late 1970s, a period of intense debate on the social responsibilities of business to society. The author suggests that corporations have four categories of social responsibilities which "fully address the entire range of obligations business has to society" (Carroll, 1979, p. 499). The four categories of business responsibilities are placed in a pyramidal model, according to society's expectations towards business (Carroll, 1991). From bottom to top, the categories address: (1) economic responsibilities (to produce valuable goods and services and to attain profit); (2) legal responsibilities (to operate within the framework of legal requirements); (3) ethical responsibilities (to operate within society's moral framework); and (4) discretionary responsibilities (to perform voluntary activities that contribute to societal development).
The lower layer represents the primary expectation towards business accomplishments. These four categories are not mutually exclusive, nor are they intended to portray a continuum from economic to social concerns. Given its extensive scope, it is one of the most quoted models of CSR. In more recent proposals (European Commission, 2001;McWilliams and Siegel, 2001) less attention is given to the practices related to attaining profit and operating in accordance with the law because it is questionable whether these are in fact activities that go "beyond legal prescriptions". More recently, following the European Commission's (2001) Green Paper on social responsibility, Neves and Bento (2005) organised the pool of corporate social responsibilities around two main dimensions. The internal dimension comprises corporate responsibilities related both to internal stakeholders and environmental impact management. Practices echoing internal corporate social responsibilities include corporate initiatives dignifying employees and workplace conditions, fostering work-family balance and equal opportunities, developing the skills, competencies and employability of human resources, as well as investment in environmental management systems. The external dimension encompasses a set of corporate responsibilities related to external stakeholders, namely the local community, consumers, business partners and suppliers, amongst others. Some of the most prevalent examples of practices in this dimension are the implementation of solidarity programmes, corporate volunteering programmes and environmental conservation programmes.
Corporate social responsibilities, be they internal or external, can also be organised in line with the specific area in which they are implemented (Neves and Bento, 2005): social, economic or environmental. These areas correspond to the triple bottom line (Elkington, 1998): people (social activities pursuing social justice, e.g. corporate volunteering), profit (economic activities pursuing economic prosperity, e.g. corporate sponsorship) and planet (environmental activities pursuing environmental quality, e.g. materials re-utilisation). The articulation between dimensions and areas of social MRJIAM 8,2 responsibility results in six fields or categories of business responsibilities: social internal (responsibilities to people inside the organisation), social external (responsibilities to people outside the organisation), economic internal (responsibilities to pursue corporate economic prosperity), economic external (responsibilities to contribute to society's economic prosperity), environmental internal (responsibilities to minimise environmental impact) and environmental external (responsibilities to contribute to environmental protection and preservation).
Both these approaches derive from theoretical proposals but research has rarely attempted to establish whether they are a true reflection of the perceptions of CSR held by stakeholders (Maignan, 2001). Research conducted by Maignan (2001) and Maignan and Ferrell (2001) on consumers and managers' understanding of business social responsibilities constitute exceptions. The authors of both studies have employed Carroll's model as theoretical framework for a survey about perceptions of business responsibilities. Results show that the surveyed respondents indeed differentiate the four business responsibilities proposed by Carroll, although it can be concluded that the findings reflect pre-defined corporate responsibilities and not the respondents' own definition of business responsibilities (Maignan, 2001). This indicates the need for further research to understand whether the proposed dimensions are relevant for stakeholders and also to serve as a basis for the development of valid measures of CSR. This study addresses this issue by using a free-association task in which respondents are allowed to use their own definitions of corporate social responsibilities.

Stakeholders' perceptions of and attitudes towards CSR
Research on stakeholders' perceptions of and attitudes towards CSR is still limited. Nonetheless, the few existing studies suggest that the perceptions and attitudes towards CSR have a positive impact on business evaluation and subsequently on people's attitudes and practices (Brown and Dacin, 1997;Dutton and Dukerich, 1991;Klein and Dawar, 2004;Maignan and Ferrell, 2001;Peterson, 2004;Salmones et al., 2005;Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001).
Studies on the impact of perceptions of CSR have mainly targeted two groups: employees and consumers. Some studies were thus interested in employees' perception of CSR and the outcomes of their attitudes towards it. This line of research showed that the perception of corporate involvement in socially responsible activities is positively associated with a set of attitudinal responses in the workplace, such as job satisfaction (Duarte and Neves, 2010;Koh and Boo, 2001;Valentine and Fleishman, 2008) and organisational commitment (Brammer et al., 2007;Duarte and Neves, 2009;Koh and Boo, 2004;Maignan et al., 1999;Peterson, 2004;Rego et al., 2009). There is also some evidence that employees' attitudes towards CSR moderate the relation between CSR perceptions and job attitudes (Koh and Boo, 2004;Peterson, 2004). Corporate social reputation is also important for job seekers who tend to show preference for organisations that have a reputation for being involved in socially responsible activities (Greening and Turban, 2000;Turban and Greening, 1997). It seems, therefore, that the positive outcomes of CSR are dependent, at least in some degree, on the meaning internal stakeholders attribute to the concept.
Other studies have focused on the consumers' perception of and attitudes towards CSR. Overall, these studies found a link between corporate social performance and people's positive affective, cognitive and behavioural responses towards business Corporate social responsibility (Creyer and Ross, 1997). This relationship seems to be mediated by the overall corporate image (Brown and Dacin, 1997) and moderated by consumers' support (Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001) and attributions of the motives and genuineness of corporate socially responsible activities (Ellen et al., 2006;Sen et al., 2006). The abovementioned studies focus on employees' and consumers' evaluative positions towards corporations' social responsibility and try to establish a relationship between those attitudes and a set of cognitive, affective and behavioural outcomes. Taken together, the results of these two lines of research reinforce the assumption that socially responsible behaviour is good business practice (Salmones et al., 2005). But into order to better understand the positions towards CSR, we defend that it is necessary to assess people's shared ideas and beliefs on the subject. This seems particularly important since, as mentioned above, some studies suggest that individuals' opinions about CSR are related to a set of affective and behavioural responses concerning business outcomes. For instance, in a cross-cultural consumer survey Maignan (2001) found that French and German consumers give less importance to economic responsibility than their American counterparts. Differences were also reported regarding managers' perceptions of CSR in different countries (Orpen, 1987 -American vs South-African;Shafer et al., 2007 -American vs Chinese). Additionally, Kim and Kim (2010) have recently examined the relationship between Hofstede's cultural dimensions and public relations practitioners' perceptions of CSR in South Korea and found that cultural dimensions (particularly collectivism, Confucianism and uncertainty avoidance) affect perceptions of CSR. This result reinforces, yet again, the need to understand which CSR dimensions are made salient in a specific national context. Addressing this research question, therefore, contributes to the furthering of an enhanced and integrative model of CSR and to overcoming existing theoretical and assessment limitations.
The present study As presented above, the concept of CSR has only recently been introduced in Portuguese society. Corporations operating in Portugal are investing in the promotion of their "good practices", acknowledging the role of public opinion on expected business returns, both in its tangible (e.g. profits and investments) and symbolic forms (e.g. corporate reputation). The number of organisations presenting their annual sustainability report is growing with every year (Business Council for Sustainable Development Portugal, 2010).
The main objective of this research consists of mapping out the semantic content of social meaning of CSR in an attempt to capture the constellations of ideas that people associate with this concept. Previous studies have adopted structured questionnaires as the main data collection technique, thus imposing a pre-defined conceptualisation on participants. This is a recognised limitation of prior research and is the origin of a call for qualitative inquiries examining how individuals define corporate social responsibilities in general (Maignan, 2001). Qualitative methods have privileged tools for capturing the plurality of perspectives present in the elaboration of a social object. This study uses a free association task because it allows the respondents to register the ideas that freely come to mind when faced with the concept. Indeed, less structured tasks have the advantage of enabling the participant to present his/her most significant or salient categories in the object definition.

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To our best knowledge there are no studies about the social meaning of CSR or related concepts. Therefore, this study assumes an exploratory nature. Nonetheless, it seems intuitively reasonable to expect that the ideas associated with CSR will correspond to the most salient practices of CSR diffused by organisations, namely practices reflecting external social and environmental responsibilities (Branco and Rodrigues, 2008). Moreover, given the traditional perspective of business responsibility, we also expect to find ideas anchored in more traditional dimensions of economic business performance.

Method
Participants and procedure A self-report questionnaire was administered to a convenience sample of 298 individuals, with data collection taking place during November 2006. A total of 23 questionnaires were eliminated due to invalid responses. The final sample is composed of 275 participants aged between 18 and 72 (mean ¼ 31.2; SD ¼ 11.9), the majority of whom are female (65.5 per cent). The educational level of the sample is relatively high (7.6 per cent completed middle school, 53.5 per cent completed high school and 38.5 per cent has higher education). A large proportion of the participants is currently employed and works in a private corporation (30.5 per cent), a public corporation (27.6 per cent) or are self-employed (15.3 per cent). The remaining participants are college students (26.5 per cent). Participants were employed in a variety of business sectors, notably in sales, transport, bank, insurance, electronics, telecommunication services, education and health. A large percentage of the participants was employed in organisations with fewer than 250 employees (58.8 per cent).

Instrument and data analysis
The questionnaire included a free association task and socio-professional questions that allowed for the sample description. Participants were instructed to write down "words or expressions that come to mind when thinking about a socially responsible corporation". Respondents were asked to write as many responses as possible. Although the social meaning of CSR may be presumed to be contingent on the role that individuals adopt in specific contexts (e.g. consumer, employee, other), this study aims to capture the general understanding of CSR. Thus, no role was made salient during the fulfilment of the task. This approach sought to capture the more transversal, salient and enduring ideas associated with CSR.
The data collected were then submitted to a content analysis (Krippendorff, 1980). The category system used to code data was developed using a bottom-up technique, also called emergent coding, which uses the data to be coded to create a coding scheme. The theme was taken as the unit of analysis; the sections of participants' answers that referred to the same theme were grouped together (this could be a word or an entire phrase depending on the case). This process allowed the identification of 28 categories that were named so as to reflect the content of the themes included therein. Table I shows the category system and examples of themes that refer to the categories. In order to ensure the quality of the category system, two researchers independently rated 10 per cent of the collected questionnaires (randomly selected). The value of the inter-rate agreement indicates a very adequate level of reliability for the category system (k of Cohen for the inter-rate agreement ¼ 0.84). General environmental concern General corporate concern with the environment and involvement in protection and conservation activities that go beyond those directly related with the business operations "[. . .] environmental protection" Q4 "[.
. .] supports environmental protection programmes" Q39 General social concern Corporate concern with society in general, contributes to protecting human rights and cooperates with other social actors with the aim of societal well being

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After the content analysis of all data had been completed by one of the researchers, the results of the analysis were entered into a SPSS data base, producing a matrix of presences and absences for each respondent. Since the study aim was to capture people's understanding of CSR, the questionnaire was selected as the unit of register. Accordingly, only the presence or absence of a particular category in each questionnaire was taken into account, and not the number of responses that each respondent wrote down for each category.

Free associations: categories frequency
The participants produced a total of 811 responses that were aggregated into the aforementioned 28 categories. Each participant produced between one and eight associations, and the mean number of associations produced was three (M ¼ 2.96; SD ¼ 1.39). Table II includes the list of categories and the number of participants that mentioned each category (minimum ¼ 1; maximum ¼ 100). The participants associated a socially responsible corporation mostly with general social concern (n ¼ 100; comprises ideas related to organisations' concern for society in general and with corporate Category Frequency General social concern 100 General environmental concern 83 Support of social causes 80 Respect for and fulfilment of the law 73 Reduction of environmental impact 55 General concern and respect for employees Corporate social responsibility responsibilities regarding human rights and collaboration with other institutional actors in order to improve society's well being) and general environmental concern (n ¼ 83; encompasses ideas related with corporate responsibilities and concern for the environment, including corporate involvement in environmental protection and conservation practices that go beyond the strict reduction of business environmental impact). Support for social causes (n ¼ 80; includes ideas associated with corporate solidarity and support of social causes and not-for-profit organisations) and respect for and fulfilment of the law (n ¼ 73; aggregates ideas related with corporate compliance with diverse rules and laws from different domains, labour, social insurance, finance, others) were also frequently mentioned categories. On the other hand, the least mentioned themes or ideas were relationship with suppliers and unions, implementation of a participated management system and use of CSR for advertising purposes with only one mention each. As expected, some of the most salient categories correspond, in lato sensu, to corporate activities that are often disclosed by organisations as part of their social responsibility strategy (e.g. general social concern, general environmental concern, support for social causes) or that are related to the more traditional view of business responsibilities (respect and fulfilment of the law, economic performance and viability).

Spatial organisation of the categories: analysis of homogeneity
In order to better understand how the categories are associated or grouped by the participants, a homogeneity analysis (HOMALS) was performed (van de Geer, 1993) using SPSS 12.0. Participants with similar answers will have identical scores and, from a graphic viewpoint, will be projected more closely to each other. In this analysis, only categories with more than 20 occurrences were entered (n ¼ 14). The HOMALS converged to a two-dimensional solution after 50 iterations (fit ¼ 0.23). Table III  The discrimination measures help reveal the categories that have higher explanatory power and are inherent to each dimension. Category quantifications represent the coordinates of categories in space. For dimension 1, depicted horizontally, discrimination measures display support of social causes, general environmental concern and general social concern on the left side, contrasting with provision of good working condition, respect and fulfilment of the law, promotion of a good work environment and fair wages on the right side. Therefore, the first dimension was labelled "concern for society and the environment -concern about working conditions". For dimension 2, depicted vertically, promotion of occupational safety and health and offering social services to employees at the bottom, contrasts with economic performance and viability and ethical posture at the top. Dimension 2 was therefore labelled "concern about occupational safety and healthconcern about economic performance and ethics". Figure 1 shows these dimensions pictorially and allows for the identification of three relatively autonomous conceptions of socially responsible corporations.
The first conception, in the top right quadrant, is based on economic (goal attainment, efficiency, good management and monitoring practices) and ethical concerns (having a code of conduct, being a responsible, honest and trustworthy corporation).
The second, on the left, includes corporations' general concern for society (respect for human rights, corporate citizenship and cooperation for community development and well being), social solidarity (financial support of non-profit organisations and other concern Support of social causes

General social concern
Training Positive work environment

Good working conditions
Fair wages

Respect for law
Corporate social responsibility social solidarity institutions, engagement in social projects aimed at poverty eradication) and also concerns for the environment, both at a global (nature preservation, environmental projects) and private level (good practices of environmental impact management, recycling, refusal to conduct tests on animals). The third representation, in the bottom right quadrant, embraces several ideas about a respectful and encouraging human resource management (respect for employees' rights but mostly for human beings' rights, promoting a good working environment, having training programmes, fair wages).
In order to relate the respondents' socio-demographic characteristic with the HOMALS dimensions, variations in the two dimensions scores were tested for sex, age, level of education, employment status and dimension of the organisation where individuals are currently working. Only one significant difference was found. Positions on "concern about occupational safety and health -concern about economic performance and ethics" dimension were significantly different for age groups (T ¼ 2.271, p , 0.05). Participants were divided into two age groups according to the distribution mean (31.2): younger participants (57.1 per cent) and older participants (42.9 per cent). The younger participants associate a socially responsible corporation with economic performance and ethical posture (M ¼ 0.118; SD ¼ 1.0), while older participants associate it more with ideas related to occupational safety and health and human resource management (M ¼ 20.157; SD ¼ 0.98). There were no differences in the position of the two groups regarding the "concern for society and the environment -concern about working conditions" dimension (younger: M ¼ 20.053; SD ¼ 1.00; older: M ¼ 0.71; SD ¼ 1.00; T ¼ 21.024, ns). It should be noted that the younger participants have a higher educational level (x 2 LR(3) ¼ 30.817, p, 0.000) and a higher percentage of unemployed persons (x 2 (3) ¼ 79,632, p,0.000) than the older respondents.
In sum, the results elicit three distinct views of a socially responsible corporation. For some individuals, a socially responsible corporation is a corporation that is both efficient and ethical in the development of its business operations. For others, it refers to an organisation that considers society as a whole and plays an active role in contributing to its well being, behaves in an ecologically friendly way and acts in the field of social solidarity. For yet another set of participants a socially responsible corporation is one that assumes a set of human resources practices that demonstrate respect and concern for employees and their families' well being.

Discussion and conclusions
Despite the growing debate around CSR, little research has been conducted into people's representations of the concept. This study explored the social meaning of CSR using qualitative data collection and analysis techniques, thus responding to a call for qualitative inquiries examining how individuals define corporate social responsibilities in general (Maignan, 2001).
The findings suggest a multidimensional conceptualisation of socially responsible corporations by respondents. The most recurrent ideas are related with corporate concern for society well-being and environment and with corporate support of social causes. Corporate respect and fulfilment of the law is another idea frequently associated with a socially responsible corporation as well as reducing environmental impact, respect for employees and economic performance. Less frequent or salient ideas about CSR include corporate relationship with unions and suppliers, implementation MRJIAM 8,2 of a participated management system or the utilisation of CSR for advertising purposes. Since the two highest ranking categories refer to more general and external issues, it suggests that CSR is conceptualised as the integration of responsibilities that are outside of the strict business activities and situated at a more macro (social and environmental) level. This understanding is fairly aligned with the more recent definitions of the concept that propose the adoption of social and environmental considerations in business operations as an important part of corporate social responsibilities (European Commission, 2001;Dahlsrud, 2008). In addition, the way organisations manage their relationships with multiple interested parties was almost irrelevant for the participants, except with regard relationship with employees. Employees are seen as a very important group and consequently a socially responsible corporation must address a set of issues related with employees' well being at work. At least ten of the 28 categories mentioned by the participants are directly related with dimensions of job satisfaction ( Judd et al., 2001). On the other hand, consumers, unions and suppliers were given little salience by the respondents. Given the emphasis that has been given to stakeholder management in the literature on CSR, this is surprising to say the least.
A comparison of the respondents' ideas on CSR with the theoretical approaches reveals that people's understanding of the concept includes ideas pertaining to both the classical Anglo-American model and the more recent European approach. On one hand, it includes ideas about corporate social, economic and environmental responsibilities (Neves and Bento, 2005) and on the other it also incorporates ideas about the ethical and legal business responsibilities (Carroll, 1979(Carroll, , 1991(Carroll, , 1999, thus encompassing both mandatory/implicit and non-mandatory/explicit corporate social responsibilities Moon, 2005, 2008). Thus, the results of this study suggest that most of the proposed dimensions are relevant for the public at a general level and may, with some adaptation, serve as a basis for the development of valid measures of perceptions of CSR.
The HOMALS performed suggests two major dimensions underlying the social meaning of CSR. The first dimension opposes "concern for society and the environment" to "concern about working conditions". It contrasts a set of ideas related with a more external, explicit and discretionary component of CSR to a group of ideas related with a more internal and implicit one. The second dimension contrasts "concern about occupational safety and health" to "concern about economic performance and ethics". It exposes a perspective that is closer to the traditional representation of corporate responsibility (where economic proficiency is the primary responsibility of business, albeit with the addition of ethical considerations on the way business is conducted) in contrast to a more recent concern about the provision of working conditions that guarantee occupational safety and health.
The results have not provided support for significant socio-professional variations in scores for either dimension. The only exception is the age variation in the scores of the "concern about occupational safety and health vs economic performance and ethics" dimension. The results showed that the younger participants associate a socially responsible corporation with economic performance and ethical posture while older respondents associate it with ideas related to occupational safety and health and human resource management. A reasonable justification for this is that the younger group is predominantly composed of students who have still not acquired a strong perspective of the internal dimensions of labour. Working conditions are, conversely, very salient to the older group who are already engaged in working activities.

Corporate social responsibility
The analysis also suggests that people's understanding of CSR is characterised by three distinct views of a socially responsible corporation. A socially responsible corporation is an organisation that: (1) assumes an active role in achieving social and environmental well-being; (2) is efficient and also ethical in the development of its business operations; or (3) assumes a set of human resources practices that demonstrate respect and concern for the well being of employees and their families.
The two latter notions are related to the internal dimension of CSR and the former is related to the external dimension of CSR (Neves and Bento, 2005). The three views also cover the different ladders of CSR proposed by Carroll, although without a stringent hierarchy of the proposed areas. This study, therefore, portrays how the ideas circulating on CSR to some extent mirror the conceptualisation introduced by approaches that ascribe multiple social responsibilities to business. However, the HOMALS also reveals that the organisation of the categories is not an exact match with any of the approaches previously introduced (Carroll, 1979(Carroll, , 1991Neves and Bento, 2005), revealing that multiple responsibilities are imputed to business activity, including the maximisation of stockholders' profit within legal boundaries. A comprehensive analysis of previous proposals, therefore, contributes to a greater understanding of the complexity of people's representations of CSR. The six categories of business responsibilities of Neves and Bento (2005) allow for a more detailed understanding of the contents of the economic, social and environmental areas. But explicit references to legal and ethical issues, not considered in this model but fundamental in Carroll's pyramidal model, are also broadly valued. The legal dimension is associated with good working conditions and occupational safety and health, and this occurs mainly because its contents reveal a preoccupation with the fulfilment of labour law. The ethical dimension is related to a general concern about financial performance, revealing beliefs about efficient management practices embracing ethical standards.
In our opinion, the results also show how some dimensions of CSR are being elaborated more than others. Differences at the level of specificity used by participants in their responses support this conclusion and deserve further discussion. The categories of social and environmental concern are presented in a very general way, with vague references to "respect for human rights" or "environmental protection". In contrast, the categories related with economic performance and human resource management are presented in a more detailed way, with explicit allusions to "investment in professional training", "flexible work schedule for employees with children" or "employment contracts with disabled employees". The social meaning of CSR is thus deeply anchored in the more traditional view of business responsibility whilst also starting to integrate the new ideas that highlight the "going beyond the law" perspective. This can be linked with the cultural context in which the study was conducted. As Matten and Moon (2005) noted there has been a shift in the balance between implicit and explicit CSR in Europe and the adoption of a more explicit CSR has been emphasised in recent years.
Despite the interest and broad scope of the results reported in this paper, caution is advised in their generalisation since the sample was not representative of the Portuguese population. In fact, the sample was predominantly well educated and young while the Portuguese population is predominantly old and poorly educated.

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Individuals with different socio-demographic characteristics might have different understandings of corporations' social responsibilities and associate different contents and ideas to the concept. Future research should replicate this study using a more heterogeneous and representative national sample.
A more macro, cultural perspective can also add to the understanding of this study's results. Social meaning is embedded in the context in which it is constructed and, as Kim and Kim (2010) recently demonstrated, the cultural context influences individuals' perceptions of corporate social responsibilities. Moreover, as discussed by Matten and Moon (2005), there are differences between the Anglo-American and the European approach to corporate social responsibilities, with social responsibilities being less a matter of the individual discretion of European corporations than for their American counterparts. Portugal has some cultural specificities that may frame people's understanding of the social responsibilities of business. For instance, as a collectivistic culture that values collective achievement and well being, it might be thought that corporate responsibilities that simultaneously guarantee the success of organisation and society would be more salient to and/or valued by individuals. Moreover, the high levels of femininity (Jesuíno, 2002) sustain the preference for corporate activities that signal orienting business behaviour towards people and environment. These assumptions can be tested by future research that replicates the study in other national and cultural contexts. Cross-cultural research on people's understanding of CSR can be of added value given the international scope of business activities in today's global market (Maignan, 2001).
This study sheds light on the social meanings in circulation on CSR, highlighting relevant contents for future research on perceptions of CSR. Some theoretical and managerial implications can be stressed. At the theoretical level, the study adds to existing knowledge in several ways. First, it reports data on CSR in a non-Anglo-Saxon country, joining other efforts to expand knowledge about CSR across the globe. Second, it reports data on people's understanding of CSR, responding to the call for qualitative inquiries examining how individuals define such practices (Maignan, 2001). The findings provide empirical support for the common multidimensional conceptualisation of the concept, although pointing to a tri-dimensional configuration. This is an interesting contribution to the current state of the art particularly because these dimensions aggregate ideas about corporate socially activities from both theoretical approaches, showing that the current representation of the concept encompasses both mandatory and non-mandatory business responsibilities. Therefore, a comprehensive approach is required to fully capture the social meaning and people's expectations of CSR. Third, the findings also have implications for the assessment of people's perceptions of corporate social performance. Measurement instruments must accurately capture the multidimensional nature of the concept (Maignan, 2001) and not be reduced to one-dimensional or general evaluations (Valentine and Fleishman, 2008). Additionally, measurement instruments must operationalise correctly the dimensions of CSR that are most salient in the specific national context.
From the managerial viewpoint, this research enlightens corporations, at least those operating in Portugal, about the more transversal, salient and enduring ideas associated to CSR. This should be acknowledged by corporations in their business activities. Businesses wishing to position themselves as socially responsible must be prepared to demonstrate their corporate responsibility not only in the social and environmental domains, but also in human resource management and in their Corporate social responsibility economic and ethical performance. Knowledge of the expectations of their stakeholders leads to more aligned and strategic CSR policies as well as more strategic social disclosure, thus fostering companies' social legitimacy (Branco and Rodrigues, 2008). It is likely that businesses operating in different countries will have to meet different expectations and that implementing uniform social disclosure programs across borders can be inadequate and result in poor returns (Maignan, 2001). The aim of this study was to capture the general understanding of CSR. A study of the meaning that specific groups of stakeholders, notably employees, managers, union representatives and consumers, associate to CSR would be an interesting avenue for future research. As advanced by Wood (1991, p. 712) "stakeholders are likely to evaluate CSR differently, depending not only on their own interests, but also on their understanding and acceptance of CSR". Since different perspectives about CSR can hinder dialogue and the exchange of ideas about the implementation and evaluation of corporate social behaviour amongst these groups, the comprehensive mapping of their positioning on this concept is essential. Understanding the expectations and vocabularies of other groups will help overcome mutual stereotypes and prejudices and foster a trust-based dialogue (Arenas et al., 2009). This line of research could help uncover the most valued contents of CSR for each group, and anticipate potential sources of conflict between groups of stakeholders. The metamorphic character of the CSR dimensions is another yet unexplored perspective; in this sense, depending on the relative importance each stakeholder has for a specific business activity the weight of each dimension could be different. Such findings could also be of added-value in the management of expectations of these multiple stakeholders.

Notes
1. For a detailed description of CSR across Europe see Habish et al. (2005).
2. In this study, we adopt the "equivalent view" proposed by Matten and Crane (2005) and will use the terms CSR and corporate citizenship interchangeably (see a similar perspective in Mirvis and Googins (2006), Rego et al. (2009) andWaddock (2004)).