L’offerta di contenuti di responsabilità sociale negli atenei italiani. Un’analisi esplorativa

ABSTRACT:

Over the years, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become an increasingly central role within the Italian context. The diffusion of this theme, favoured by the interventions of the Community legislature, has determined for the companies the need to equip themselves with conscious figures able to work with specific competences in this field. The United Nations and the European Commission have launched a series of initiatives that have led universities to assume a role of active participation in the context of a process of profound change fostered by research and didactics activities on the subject. In this sense, previous studies highlight how the number of CSR courses provided by foreign universities has increased over the years. The aim of the present research is to provide a mapping of the offer of social responsibility content in Italian universities and, more specifically, in the three-yearly and masterful degree courses. The methodology used involves two different levels of analysis. The first level consists in a content analysis of the italian universities web site, and serves to identify the presence of CSR’s courses into the curricula. The second level of analysis is qualitatitve-descriptive and investigates the charachteristics of the courses, such as: CFU, languages, status and gender of professors, location of the universities, etc. The results that emerge from the analysis, if linked to those related to previous research, highlight how, in our country, the focus on the topic has grown compared to the past. The increase refers not only to the number of active teachings for the three-year and master’s degree course, but also to the specific weight that these teachings play in the whole of the training credits assigned for a specific degree course. The offer of social responsibility of the Italian universities, for the academic year 2017/2018, consists of 103 teachings, divided into 57 degree courses (16 courses of bachelor’s degree and 41 courses of Master’s degree), all afferent to the area CUN 13. Of particular interest is the data relating to the high incidence of the teaching of business accounting (SECS P/07) and of marketing and communication (SECS P/08) which, however, confirms what previously emerged from some research at national and international level. One of the main limitations of this study is related to the lack of information about the size, in terms of average numeber of students and professors’ background involved in the curricula. Also, future studies could consider in the analysis the research and institutional activities of the professors involved in the teaching activity of the courses to evaluate the relationship between these aspects.

KEYWORDS: Social responsibility education, Sustainability education, University social responsibility.