The concept of corporate social responsibility as a source of an enterprise’s competitive advantage

This chapter aims to determine the significance of Corporate Social Responsibility as a source of enterprise competitive advantage. Competitive advantage primarily arises from unique and inimitable resources and social activities of an enterprise. A research hypothesis is posited that the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility is a statistically significant source of an enterprise’s competitive advantage. Literature about sources of enterprises’ competitive advantage is reviewed in the theoretical part. The empirical section, on the other hand, presents results of the author’s research into a group of 253 large enterprises operating in Poland. The survey employed the method of Computer-Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI). The hypothesis was verified by means of descriptive statistics. Position measures (arithmetic mean and median) and measures of variance (standard deviation, coefficient of variability) were utilised. Exploratory factor analysis, which explains correlations and seeks causes of covariation, was additionally applied. The number of factors was selected based on Cattell’s scree test and Kaiser criterion.