The Role of Governments in Corporate Social Responsibility: Characterising Public Policies on CSR in Europe
26 Pages Posted: 19 Oct 2013
Date Written: November 1, 2010
Abstract
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) aims to better integrate social and environmental concerns into business routines on a voluntary basis. The present paper is concerned with the political side of the management approach. By systematically characterising the public policies on CSR throughout Europe, it firstly complements the existing, often unsystematic, accounts of how governments address CSR (mostly provided in management journals). Secondly, it also brings the issue closer to political science. After explaining why governments show interest in CSR, the paper introduces CSR as a voluntary contribution to sustainable development. It then develops a typology of CSR policies that distinguishes five types of policy instruments (legal, economic, informational, partnering, and hybrid) and four thematic fields of action (raise awareness, improve transparency, foster socially responsible investment, and lead by example). Based on this systematic description of CSR policies, the paper explores what CSR and the respective public policies imply for business-government relations as well as the changing patterns of regulation. It concludes that CSR started out as a neo-liberal concept that helped to downscale government regulations, but that it has in turn matured into a more progressive approach of societal co-regulation in recent years. Regarding the effectiveness and the opportunity costs of this new pattern of governance, the paper emphasises that the respective assessment gaps should be filled by case study research.
Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), public policies on CSR, business self-regulation, business government relations, new governance, business-society relations, societal co-regulation, sustainable development
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