In the last few decades, the traditional concept of the firm as a private and profit-oriented property has changed in favour of the idea that individuals and groups influenced by business decisions are the stakeholders.
In fact, firms are increasingly required to safeguard and contribute to the welfare of society. While firms are increasingly aware of the social implications that their choices have, the managerial results can be very different.
CSR is an important aspect of entrepreneurial strategies. In particular, the social impact of entrepreneurial activity is becoming increasingly important not only for profit firms but also for non-profit ones. CSR has a strong moral imperative and, in most corporate social choices, it involves balancing competing values, interests and costs. A moral calculation is necessarily made to evaluate one social benefit against another or against its financial costs.
However, to date it is not yet possible to do. Sustainability calls for personal interest based on economic, social and environmental performance. Therefore, companies are asked to act in such a way as to safeguard long-term economic performance and to avoid socially harmful short-term behaviour. In this context, corporate reputation is the foundation for good corporate social responsibility.
A competitive and innovative market system based on strong competitiveness offers greater social benefits. However, since not everyone is an entrepreneur, and not all entrepreneurs are able to operate in making a profit or offering social benefits, clearer indications on CSR would allow firms to assume greater responsibility in certain conditions.
The information gap between a company and its stakeholders is a limitation of the reputational mechanism. The need to converge towards shared management models and the introduction of CSR would limit the reputational mechanism in which firms operate. Morals, ethics and social well-being are just some of the elements in which the entrepreneur's actions have a good behaviour. All of these are contained in corporate social responsibility's path.

Antonia Rosa Gurrieri, assistant Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Foggia. The main fields of interest are entrepreneurship, SMEs, networs and family firms, with particular interest in relations between entrepreneurs and firms.