Corporate Social Responsibility during the Crisis:  Historical Aspect and Russian Arctic Practice during the COVID-19 Pandemic

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 Ekaterina E. Toropushina

Luzin Institute for Economic Studies of the Kola Science Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Apatity, Russia, wranka@rambler.ru, ORCID 0000-0002-5263-2902

 Abstract. The outbreak of a new coronavirus infection and the need to combat it everywhere contributed to the more active implementation by companies of their policies in the field of corporate social responsibility, the growth of social investments  in healthcare and education, and the development of corporate volunteering. Such an increase in activity was also observed  earlier — during periods of other crises and disasters, when companies significantly expanded their social orientation, moved  to a new level of interaction with employees, consumers and communities to solve acute problems of a critical period, retaining these new elements in the future already in its current activities. The aim of the work was to study the practice of implementing corporate social responsibility during periods of various crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic. In the process of work, scientific methods of content analysis, logical and comparative analysis were used. The study contributes to the scientific discourse  on the problem of the relationship between the theory and practice of corporate social responsibility, its implementation during periods of various crises. The practical significance lies in the possibility of applying the results obtained in the practice of initiating  and implementing by business structures, including Russian Arctic companies, their policies in this area (including now, during  the Ukrainian crisis, in conditions of geopolitical and geo-economic uncertainty). It is obvious that the still existing uncertainty  in the manifestation of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the emergence of new unprecedented changes  in geopolitical and geo-economic conditions caused by the Ukrainian crisis, suggests continuation of the study of these issues  and requires additional research on corporate social responsibility, as well as its practical implementation by companies, carrying out their economic activities in the Russian Arctic.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, crisis, foreign experience, Russian Arctic, COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic

Acknowledgments: the article is based on the results of the state assignment on the topic of the research of the Luzin Institute  for Economic Studies of the Kola Science Centre of the Russian Academy of Science work AAAA-A18-118051590115-9  “Social Aspects of Self-development Management of Regions and Local Communities in the Russian Arctic”.

For citation: Toropushina Е. Е. Corporate social responsibility during the crisis: historical aspect and Russian Arctic  practice during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sever i rynok: formirovanie ekonomicheskogo poryadka [The North and the Market:  Forming the Economic Order], 2022, no. 4, pp. 167–180. doi:10.37614/2220-802X.4.2022.78.012

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