Potentiale von Corporate Social Responsibility während der Wirtschaftskrise 2009

One of the many negative effects of the economic crisis is the lost confidence of society in the economy. The rebuilding of trust is a necessity to reduce the ongoing turbulences of the financial and economic system. The demand of society for greater accountability and transparency on the part of traders is getting louder. This paper shows that the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can help companies to rebuild the lost confidence of the society and strengthened to lead through the crisis. The theoretical part of this paper presents many CSR measures how future crisis can be prevented. For example, more transparency can help to rebuild the lost confidence in the financial market and companies can avoid economic crime by implementing compliance management. The empirical study shows that the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility will raise significantly in Austrian companies during the next years and that organizations received many advantages during the economic crisis because of integrating CSR in their corporate strategy. The reputation of these companies has increased, and the confidence of employees has gone up in the CSR-companies. Other advantages could be seen in the growing customer loyalty and the improved changes to recruit new qualified employees.