INTENTION TO IMPLEMENT CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY – THE ROLE OF RELIGIOUSNESS AND ETHICAL IDEALISM

The awareness of the importance of corporate social responsibility is highly increasing and it has become clear that it is an essential element of sustainable development and social progress. Also research has shown that socially responsible behavior is not anymore a competitive advantage, but an important precondition for competitive parity or surviving in the market. The aim of this research is to determine influential factors of business students' intention to implement corporate social responsibility in their future companies. There is a vast research base dealing with the corporate social responsibility of managers. However, this research is based on the assumption that from the perspective of the possible positive influence, it is necessary to investigate the influences during the time before they become managers in order to develop an effective educational program to increase the awareness and positive attitudes towards corporate social responsibility. The model is based on the theory of planned behavior and extended with two variables: representation of corporate social responsibility in education which has been determined in previous research, and religiousness and ethical idealism which is a new variable proposed in the present research. Two models were tested, one using three original TPB constructs (attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control) and the other using the extended version of TPB. The latter model confirms the importance of the inclusion of CSR in education and explains the positive role of religiousness and ethical idealism. The level of students' religiousness and ethical idealism is proved to be significant influential factors on students' intention to implement CSR in their future companies.