Linking CSR to National Competitiveness and Innovation

Recently, the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) agenda emerged to be core subject in business, politics and academia. Although, the entire debate about CSR had initially been started from asking whether societies at large might benefit from companies engaging in CSR, up to now this question is highly under-researched. This is more unexpected given the fact that most governments throughout the globe have yet been framed their development agendas around promoting the CSR concept. The following study adds value to the existing literature by analyzing whether entire nations can benefit from companies investing in CSR policies. In particular, this study links the national level of CSR and different measures of national competitiveness. Therefore, we adopt the arguments that are usually discussed within the “Business case for CSR” on firm-level, and translate them to the macroeconomic context. In accordance with the business case arguments, we conclude that while investing in CSR, companies promote national innovativeness, the quality of human resources, productivity, and standards of living within a country.