INTRODUCTION

Summary

Contemporary organizations (including in particular companies) in order to maintain market competitiveness have to take numerous actions which can be assigned to two categories: 1) competing and 2) cooperating. Parallel competition and cooperation can be regarded as an element of current paradigm in management sciences.

The present publication includes an analysis of selected activities of organizations oriented towards competition or cooperation.

The work starts with a paper on analysis of connections between implementation of CSR practices and competitiveness of an organization on the B2B market. The text illustrates CSR practices as a tool for managing relations between organizations and their suppliers. It also contains an exemplification of applying CSR practices by Arcelor Mittal in its relations with suppliers.

The next paper continues the theme of CSR. In this case, the focus is on the description of actions implemented in this area by companies of Polish energy sector. The text exposes the specifics of CSR in this sector with special regard to the stakeholders of energy enterprises.

The third text completes the preceding one discussed above. This time, description covers consumer opinions concerning CSR practices applied by companies of the energy sector. The authors verified the efficiency of these practices from the perspective of their social reception and provided utilitarian conclusions which allow to improve the mentioned practices in the future.

The fourth writing focuses on the subject of applying kaizen as a tool for improving competitiveness of suppliers.