Corporate Social Responsibility in Eastern Europe: Between the West European and US Models

• Published in: Revue d'études comparatives est-ouest 2009-06, Vol.40 (2), p.33-53
• Main Author: Mihaylova, Stefka
• Format: Article
• Language: fre
• Subjects: Corporations; Eastern Europe; Postcommunist Societies; Social Responsibility; Stability
• ISSN: 0338-0599
• DOI: 10.4074/S0338059909002022

A start is being made at corporate social responsibility in eastern Europe with all the problems encountered while implementing it. This study of these problems focuses on seven formerly Communist countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland and Slovakia. The aim is to identify the specific factors influencing the approach adopted by organizations in these countries and to analyze them so as to detect possible similarities in the behavior of the parties involved. What model can local managers use as a framework? If there is none, can the main variables of a new model for implementing corporate social responsibility be identified that better meets the needs of formerly Communist countries? Since, from a managerial viewpoint, models of corporate social responsibility from western Europe and the USA are inapplicable in eastern Europe, local managers are led to design their own models of implementation. From a theoretical viewpoint, model-building is shown, once again, to entail a simplification of reality that can spawn hard-to-explain paradoxes. The models that are built should provide general ideas and orientations only; and we should avoid applying them so rigidly that we fail to take into account the fuzzy, unstable variables of real life. Adapted from the source document.