[CORE Working Paper Series NOW available on this website!]
CORE Working Paper Series
The best papers presented at the four CORE conferences held from 2006 to 2009 have been selected for publication in the CORE Working Paper Series. The papers are available for download on this website. Check out the authors and contributions in the Conference section!

[Final Programme of the 4th CORE Conference is now available]
Final Programme of the 4th CORE Conference is now available
The Final Programme for the 4th CORE Conference 2009 is now available and can be found in the section "Conferences".

[First round of reviews finished – apply NOW for remaining grants available for theme-tracks 2 & 3!]
Deadline: May 18th 2009
The first round of reviews of applications to the CORE Conference IV has been finished. We would like to thank all applicants for their contributions! However, a couple of grants could not be awarded yet. The CORE Conference Team therefore invites young and mid-career European researchers eligible for funding to hand in abstracts and/or full papers. Grants are still available for papers addressing issues covered under theme-tracks 2 and 3 until May 18th 2009.

CORE is a Marie Curie project that aims to organise a series of four conferences on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Over the last years the EU has increasingly focused on some core strategies to shape Europe's future, mainly the Lisbon Strategy, the Sustainability Strategy and the integration of an enlarged Union. These strategies can be successful only if their implementation involves adequately and effectively economic actors (business actors), non-profit partnerships and networks, stakeholders, local communities and civil society. In this setting, CSR holds the potential to stimulate corporate contributions to the implementation and integration of EU strategies. In this respect CSR is thus a promising concept and tool. CSR has been increasingly researched in the last years. Researchers have started to look deeply into the potentials of CSR as a policy tool. CORE aims to investigate how CSR may link up with policy integration on the political level. A series of four conferences is envisaged the first three having a special focus on one of the three EU strategies (Sustainability, Lisbon, EU enlargement). The fourth conference concludes the series investigating whether it is possible to integrate the three strategies. CORE is coordinated by FEEM.
 
Background and Objectives
 
CSR is a highly debated issue in both the academic arena and among representatives of the private sectors. The decision of the private sector to undertake responsible behaviours on a voluntary and beyond-compliance basis to integrate sustainability concerns (along the so-called triple bottom line, social, environmental and economic) into their business is crucial to the successful implementation of macro-policies. CSR actions can be realised through a number of instruments, including codes of conduct, management systems, reporting, labelling and corporate citizenship activities that range from donating to stakeholder co-operations. A key question is the way in which European business converges on shared assumptions and definitions (e.g. as a result of trans-European companies developing integrated CSR norms and tools, CSR frameworks developed by business associations, consultancies, government) or retains the distinctive features of a national business system traditions. CORE deals with the major challenges of globalised society.
 
Challenge 1:
Can CSR contribute to competitiveness? While the insight that CSR increases intangible benefits is widely accepted, the financial benefits of CSR on the micro-level of companies are still an issue of scientific controversy. The debate has also moved on to ask whether CSR is a potential driver of competitiveness on the macro-level.
 
Challenge 2:
How can CSR contribute to closer integration of new Member States into the EU? Do transnational/European activities of companies result in an "export" to the new Member States of business models, of know-how, values, and expectations towards national administrations, thus increasing convergence pressures? Key questions are: the ways in which business exports CSR into the accession countries/ new Member States and the ways in which indigenous business retrieve norms and practices consistent with their own longer term business-society relations. Attention here will be on the roles of individual corporations and on CSR business associations (e.g. International Business leaders' Forum, CSR Europe) and consultancies. Interest also centres upon the development of partnerships of business with government and NGOs in these countries.
 
Challenge 3:
How can CSR link up with policy integration on the political level? The debate on environmental policy integration is not currently linked to the analysis of how companies systematically integrate into non-business concerns into their operations. The latter was analysed under varying headings (e.g. CSR, integrated management, environmental management, business and innovation, product). Company-level integration of diverging logics can potentially contribute to policy integration on the political level and to overcoming target conflicts in EU strategies.
 
As a Marie Curie project, CORE aims to offer highly profiled training on the above-mentioned topics. Given the lack of formal training opportunities on CSR, the Conferences stand as an invaluable opportunity for young researchers willing to reinforce their research knowledge and to get acquainted with key concepts of business case studies.