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.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm?abstractid=2342120

The Role of Governments in Corporate Social Responsibility: Characterising Public Policies on CSR in Europe

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the European Union’s (EU) latest regulatory principles for environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures. It explains how some of the EU’s member states are ratifying the EU Commission’s directives on ESG reporting by introducing intelligent, substantive and reflexive regulations. Design/methodology/approach – Following a review of EU publications and relevant theoretical underpinnings, this paper reports on the EU member states’ national policies for ESG reporting and disclosures. Findings – The EU has recently revised a number of tools and instruments for the reporting of financial and non-financial information, including the EU’s modernisation directive, the EU’s directive on the disclosure of non-financial and diversity information, the EU Energy Efficiency Directive, the European pollutant release and transfer register, the EU emission trading scheme, the integrated pollution prevention and control directive, among others. Practical imp...

/pdf/environmental-social-and-governance-disclosures-in-europe-1e6rzbqnl0.pdf

Environmental, social and governance disclosures in Europe

Academic literature recognizes that firms in different countries deal with corporate social responsibility (CSR) in different ways. Because of this, analysts presume that variations in national-institutional arrangements affect CSR practices. Literature, however, lacks specificity in determining, first, what parts of national political-economic configurations actually affect CSR practices; second, the precise aspects of CSR affected by national-institutional variables; third, how causal mechanisms between national-institutional framework variables and aspects of CSR practices work. Because of this the literature is not able to address to what extent CSR practices are affected by either global or national policies, discourses and economic pressures; and to what extent CSR evolves as either an alternative to or an extension of national-institutional arrangements. This article proposes an alternative approach that focuses on an exploration of links between disaggregated variables, which can then be the basis for imagining new national-institutional configurations affecting aspects of CSR. It illustrates this approach with an exploration of the importance of development aid policy for CSR practices in global supply chains.

/pdf/the-embeddedness-of-responsible-business-practice-exploring-3giw4e2wis.pdf

The Embeddedness of Responsible Business Practice: Exploring the Interaction Between National-Institutional Environments and Corporate Social Responsibility

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence of connections between sustainability policy goals included in public procurement tenders and offers and their achievement through contract award. 




Design/methodology/approach

– Two hypotheses based on extant literature and the inducement–contribution theory were tested by means of a survey of 281 procurement files from 2007 to 2009 relating to eight product categories and four European Union (EU) member states. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. 




Findings

– Findings indicate that public procurement was more effective in influencing socially responsible goals than environmental goals. In terms of supplier readiness, vendors achieved greater progress in delivering green than socially responsible operations. 




Research limitations/implications

– The collection and analysis of data are based on procurement files, which is a new but also a complex procedure. In comparison to survey data, the data from procurement file analysis are less biased. 




Practical implications

– Public procurement practitioners and sustainability policymakers should consider the use of public procurement as a lever to attain environmental and socially responsible goals. 




Social implications

– Evidence has been provided to demonstrate the strategic use of public procurement impacts on environmental and socially responsible goals, thereby benefiting society. 




Originality/value

– This study contributes in three main ways: first, by adding to existing, limited research on the use of public procurement as a lever of policy goals attainment; second, by examining environmental and socially responsible policy in one study; and third, through providing evidence across EU member states.

/pdf/driving-sustainable-supply-chain-management-in-the-public-5cqcqa02e0.pdf

Driving sustainable supply chain management in the public sector: The importance of public procurement in the European Union

Governments, in particular in Western Europe, have become increasingly active in promoting and shaping CSR. The present paper conceptually and empirically characterizes the public policies on CSR in Europe. In a first (conceptual) step, public policies on CSR are portrayed by distinguishing five types of policy instruments (i.e. legal, economic, informational, partnering, and hybrid tools) that can be employed in four fields of action (i.e. awareness for CSR, transparency, socially responsible investment, and leading by example). In a second (empirical) step, this typology is employed to show how EU Member States actually promote CSR policies. The empirical stocktaking provides an overview of more than 200 policy instruments in three of the four fields of action. In a third step, the paper compares the status of public policies on CSR in Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). By means of a simple instrument count and an analysis of variance (ANOVA) it is shown that Western European (particularly Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian) governments are significantly more active in promoting CSR than governments in CEE countries. Since these differences mirror the differences regarding the popularity of CSR as a management approach in Europe, the paper concludes that public policies on CSR reinforce rather than offset the European 'CSR gap'.

Public Policies on CSR in Europe: Themes, Instruments, and Regional Differences

Corporate social responsibility : national public policies in the European Union

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Corporate social responsibility : national public policies in the European Union