Exploring the link between corporate social responsibility and company performance. The case of European construction companies

This paper reports the first step of the ‘BRC project. Building Responsible Competitiveness’, a research project funded by the European Commission, DG Enterprise and Industry, that specifically focuses on the European construction companies. The focus of this study is on the buyer-supplier relationship. Specifically, the aim of the paper is three-fold in that it seeks: (1) to identify CSR practices that address the buyer-supplier relationship and that are perceived to be relevant by managers of construction companies; (2) to explore the adoption of such practices by a panel of major players in the Italian construction industry; and (3) to investigate the link between the adoption of such CSR practices and the strengthening of the buyer-supplier relationship. In order to explore these issues in detail and given the lack of research on these topics in the construction sector, we adopt a multiple case study methodology. We examine the issues of interest through a dyadic study of governance relationships between six Italian general contractors (GC) and two suppliers for each GC involved in the study.