Social Responsibility: Opportunities for Integral Assessment and Analysis of Connections with Business Innovation

Abstract

The paper proposes an approach to the integrated assessment of the social responsibility of EU countries with a combination of data from three international indices most relevant to the monitoring of social responsibility at the macroeconomic level: the Global Sustainable Competitiveness Index, the Sustainable Development Goals Index and the Social Progress Index. Applying the method of taxonomic analysis on the example of index values for EU countries, we assessed the differences and leaders in ensuring social responsibility. The authors do not consider country-level social responsibility only as a consequence of the development of responsible practices at all levels. Taking into account that social responsibility should be a prerequisite for expanding opportunities in all spheres, in particular, in business, the authors conducted a correlational analysis of the relationship between the taxonomic indicator of social responsibility and the development of innovative business. As a result, we confirmed significant connections with “Business sophistication” indicators (as part of the Global Innovation Index) and the share of innovative firms of total SMEs (according to OESD statistics). The obtained results strengthen the grounds for considering social responsibility not only as an important socially oriented concept, but also as a reliable basis for the development of innovative business due to the created comfortable institutional environment of business development.