The Development of Socially Responsible Business in Lithuania

Abstract

This article analyzes the peculiarities and develop-ment of the socially responsible business and conception of the corporate social responsibility (CSR). The CSR concept and those already being as part of socially re-sponsible business, more and more often require the ade-quate behavior from the supply chain partners as well. The main purpose of this article is to initiate the peculi-arities of the content and practice of socially responsible businesses worldwide and in Lithuania, as well as to de-termine the national companies‟ evaluation of the socially responsible business development and its main benefits. Modern organizations are implementing mandatory as well as voluntary management systems. Management system that is based on social responsibility requirements fall to voluntary system category. Every organization chooses how it would like to implement the corporate social responsibility and accountability concept into its daily practices. One of the best known international net-works of socially responsible businesses is Global Com-pact (GC), presented by the United Nations (UN) in 1999. Global Compact seeking two main goals: firstly – to help organizations to implement the principles of GC into business strategy, secondly – to force communication and partnership between various sectors inside and outside the country while seeking universal aims of world‟s de-velopment. Lithuania set the national network of GC in 2005. Today, this national network in Lithuania contains forty two organizations. Other organizations choose standardized management systems of social accountability - SA 8000. Despite the fact that there are over 1000 certified organizations over the world, Lithuania makes its first steps in the area. SC “Utenos Trikotaţas” is the first and the only company at the moment, which implemented and certified its socially responsible management system according to SA 8000 requirements in 2006. This company has other evident achievements, showing its socially responsible business – significant part of its production is certified and marked with “EU flower” and “Öeko-Tex” environmental marks. In 2001 the company implemented environmental man-agement system according to ISO 14000. The daughter Ukrainian enterprise “Mriya” is encouraged and sup-ported by “Utenos Trikotaţas” SC to implement princi-ples, best practices and requirements of standards men-tioned above But there are lack of scientific resumes about the pe-culiarities of design and implementation of social respon-sibility standards, links between other management sys-tems and resulting benefits. This paper provides the analysis of peculiarities when implementing SA 8000 system, it provides the new model of “cause-effect” cycle and continuous improvement in business organization. The paper reveals that certification of social accountabil-ity and responsibility system is not only to gain competi-tive advantage, but also it is a tool to reveal strengths and weaknesses of the company. Innovative Lithuanian companies are spreading the best business practices, in-cluding experience of social responsibility, to organiza-tions from other countries accessing into EU.