Students’ perceptions of corporate social responsibility: evidences from a Portuguese higher education institution

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a lasting ethical position toward the organization, the market and the society. For higher education institutions (HEI), CSR is a very timely topic, they must invest in their strategies and build a responsible approach into, not only their management activities, but also in their education programs. The purpose of this research is to examine the type of perceptions students have regarding CSR and, to examine if sociodemographic variables (such as, gender, age, professional experience and academic degree), influence the students’ perceptions of CSR. We collected data using a sample of 194 students from Polytechnic of Porto. The results suggest that the students’ perceptions present different dimensions that can be grouped in i) pro CSR, ii) resistant CSR and iii) secondary CSR, and the sociodemographic variables do not present statistically significant differences in the perceptions of the different students under study.