The demand for greater corporate accountability, transparency and credibility determined businesses to take into account their social and environmental impacts, but also to report on their performances in these areas. The idea of the present paper is to emphasize the role of different corporate social responsibility (CSR) instruments in forging the general strategy that a company should apply in order to respond to the community requirements and to benefit from its social performance. First part of the paper briefly analyses the main CSR instruments: codes of conduct, management standards, corporate sustainability reporting, social and environmental labels, socially responsible investments, surveys on sustainability performance, award schemes, benchmarking. The second part of the paper presents the situation of the companies acting on the Romanian market considering the transparency and credibility of the CSR actions carried out by them, as well as the instruments used in order to reinforce their community involvement. Last part of the paper comprises conclusions and recommendations on the topic.