Corporate Social Responsibility and Financial Return.

The example of rational use of fuel in Air transportations.

Abstract
Modern companies should be adjusted in the new conditions of a globalized
social and economical framework. New issues of global interest like climate change
have created demands concerning the dipole corporation- society. The case of Air
companies is representative of a dynamic sector which makes efforts to be the
protagonist in the global economic growth and in the efforts for the Environmental
Preservation.
The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) actions of airline companies
include the field of Fuel Management since this is the biggest expense for their
everyday operations and on the same time it is the base of measurement for the
emissions of aircrafts. There is a challenge for the achievement of an optimum fuel
management that could bring savings of scale and no extra expenses for air- carriers.
In other words, the challenge is the empowerment of Corporate Social Performance
and the Corporate Financial Return of CSR policies on parallel. However, a lot of
people support that the investments in CSR have as a result only extra costs for the
companies because these organisations have to apply new strategies and to obtain new
technologies more friendly to the environment than before. Somehow, they present a
negative relationship between CSR and companies profitability (Mc Guire et al.:
1998).
From the other side the majority of researches between the years 1972- 2000
has established a positive relationship between CSR and Corporate Financial Return
(Mc Williams & Siegel: 2001). The advantages of an optimum fuel management vary
because a part of them is direct and measurable like the reduction of fuel
expenditures. The rest of them are indirect and of medium term like the creation of a
green image for the air- carrier in the market. In that case the financial value of these
advantages is difficult to be detected. In any case the possible benefits could be
categorized in two teams: a) money saved and b) money earned (Lynes, 2004: 33).
As the usage of no renewable energy resources seems to be the most popular
solution for now and the next decades in air transportations, the management of them
should throw bridge across financial and social gaps in order to help their
organizations to survive (Orlizsky: 2003). Rowley and Berman (2000) argue that the
research for the interrelationship between Corporate Social Performance and
Corporate Financial Return is promoted by the need of existence of a convincing and

persuasive reasoning that managers of Air Companies should use in order to apply
innovative programs of optimum fuel management and CSR policies in general.
Key words: Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Financial Return, Corporate
Social Performance, Optimum Fuel Management.
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