Corporate social responsibility development : Challenges for Hungarians small and medium-sized enterprises in the pandemic

Abstract

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can be considered as the backbone of Europe's economy, which represent 99% of all businesses in the EU. They employ around 100 million people, account for more than half of Europe’s GDP and play a key role in adding value in every sector of the economy. Hungary is also a place where SMEs are popular and important to the whole economy. They provide various job opportunities, create innovation and boost competitiveness annually. To maintain the position in the long term, it is crucial for SMEs to develop their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) effectively and assess their performance annually. However, they have to face various difficulties in CSR development. And now in the time of Covid-19, there are a lot of bigger problems for them to solve: adapting to new situations, updating the national regulations, changing and adjusting their rules and their strategies, etc. This paper describes the situation of SMEs in Hungary, the main challenges in CSR development that they have suffered before and in the time of the pandemic, and also giving potential solutions to alleviate those challenges. Information and statistics in the paper are taken from online sources, as well as from scientific articles, which are all listed at the end of this paper. The aim of the paper is to raise awareness of the challenges in Hungarian SMEs and to come up with the ideas to adjust and develop their CSR in the pandemic. Therefore, it may change the perspectives of managers about the attitudes needed in order to survive in the crises.