Comparison of social and corporate performances of businesses: An application on Turkey's leading private manufacturing firms

At the end of the last century, the roles which the firms undertake in society have increased in line with the level of consciousness in society. The firms which contribute to the economic and technological developments have been accused of causing the social and environmental problems, thus, these firms were supposed to function within the fields of product quality, work place security, the rights of employees, environmental pollution, resource expenditure, contaminant materials, and social security. As a result of all considerations, it has been widely accepted that the firm should be responsible not only for creditors, share-holders, but also, for all segments of society within the context of social responsibility. Thus, the notion social responsibility becomes much more apparent.Social performance, which can be defined as the allocation of firms? resources for the different segments of society, and its correlation with the institutional performance are the main focus of this study. In this context, in the first chapter, the definition, historical evolution, theoretical framework for the concept of social responsibility, and the social responsibility areas of the firms and their international standards and social responsibility models have been analyzed. The second chapter consists of the concept of performance, the system of performance moderation, and performance report which is a multi-dimensional model to measure the institutional performance.In the third chapter, the social performance models have been singling out and later the methods used in order to measure the social performance. The comparison for the firms? social and institutional performance has been analyzed with different perspectives. Lastly, social auditing in respect of institutionalization of the social responsibility has been concerned.The forth chapter is an inquiry consist of the correlation for the social performance within the extent of social responsibility regarding the greatest 500 firms? which have been determined by the Istanbul Industrial Chamber and used the performance report in 81 firms