CSR and Competitiveness European SMEs - KMU Forschung Austria

20 CSR and Competitiveness - European SMEs’ Good Practice - Consolidated European Report
4.2 National Level
Also at individual Member State level, a multitude of different (semi-)public actors is engaged in
the field of CSR. This is to be attributed to the fact that CSR covers a transversal field of
activities resulting in a shared responsibility of the government, the private sector (and its
representative bodies) as well as the society/consumers. In the following, a systematic overview
on the most important categories of different actors as well as their strategies/initiatives to foster
SMEs’ engagement in CSR in the analysed countries is given. It is to be mentioned that this
constitutes a set of illustrative examples rather than a comprehensive list of all involved entities.
A schematic summary of key actors and their strategies presented in the next sections can be
found below:
Graph 3 Overview on (Semi-)Public Key Players and Their Strategies in the Field of CSR in
the Analysed European Countries
Incentives
Government
Awareness
raising/
information
Employers‘ and
employees‘
representatives
Source: Austrian Institute for SME Research
4.2.1 Government
Support of
enterprises
Specific CSR
bodies
Code of Ethics
Certificates
Education
institutes
Empowerment
From the Member State perspective, national governments are active in the field in CSR in
either promoting the concept as such or in supporting enterprises in the application of respective
activities.
An immediate tool of encouraging enterprises to act socially responsible is the provision of
financial incentives for the support of charitable causes (such as tax deductions for donations
for social purposes). However, in Germany political considerations to cancel such tax privileges
came on the agenda – being, nevertheless, criticised by enterprises and non-profit organisations
(Habisch/Wegner, 2004) although CSR activities are rather assessed to create “good will”
towards the society than as a way to reduce the tax burden (Maaß/Clemens, 2002). In Poland
the present tax system is seen to constitute hindering rather than favouring framework conditions
for CSR activities, and also in Austria tax allowances are “only” granted for donations to
research and development, but not for cultural purposes, for example.