scholarly journals Financing Responsible Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises: An International Overview of Policies and Support Programmes

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Susanne Durst ◽  
Wolfgang Gerstlberger

In the last few years, the financing of responsibly operating small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has become the focus of attention of several national and international bodies. Consequently, a number of policies and support programmes have been established aimed at supporting SMEs that take a responsible approach concerning the company and its operations. Against this background, this article presents a comprehensive international overview of support programmes for financing responsible SMEs. Based on systematic desk research, documents of national governments as well as supranational and international organisations have been investigated. The findings reveal that there are strong regional differences in terms of support policy approaches, intensity, and criteria. The largest part of the identified programmes has been launched by the European Union and/or its member states. Additionally, the findings clarify that the primary focus of extant programmes is on the environmental dimension of sustainability, mainly energy-related questions. The social dimension has been neglected so far in the programmes.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (10) ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Valeriy HEYETS ◽  

Self-realization of the individual in the conditions of using the policy of “social quality” as a modern tool of public administration in a transitional society is largely related to overcoming the existing limitations of the individual in acting in such a society and economy transitioning to a market character. Given that, in particular, in Ukraine the market is hybrid (and this is especially important), the existing limitations in self-realization of the individual must be overcome, including, and perhaps primarily, through transformations in the processes of socialization, which differ from European practices and institutions that ensure its implementation. Thus, it is a matter of overcoming not only and not so much the natural selfish interests of the individual, but the existing gap in skills, which are an invisible asset to ensure the endogenous nature of economic growth. It is shown that there is an inverse relationship between the formation of socialization and the policy of “social quality”, which is characterized by the dialectic of interaction between the individual and the group and which is a process of increasing the degree of socialization. The latter, due to interdependence, will serve to increase the effectiveness of interaction between the individual and the group, which expands the possibilities of self-realization of the individual in terms of European policy of “social quality” as a tool of public administration, whose successful application causes new challenges and content of the so-called secondary sociology. The logic of Ukraine's current development shows that new approaches are needed to achieve the social development goals set out in the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union and to minimize the potential risks and threats that accompany current reforms in Ukrainian society. They should introduce new forms of public administration to create policy interrelationships of all dimensions, as proposed, in particular, by the social quality approach to socialization, the nature of which has been revealed in the author's previous publications. As a result, the socio-cultural (social) dimension will fundamentally change, the structure of which must include the transformational processes of socialization of a person, thanks to which they will learn the basics of life in the new social reality and intensify their social and economic interaction on the basis of self-realization, thereby contributing to the success of state policy of social quality and achieving stable socio-economic development.


2022 ◽  
pp. 134-154
Author(s):  
Vítor João Pereira Domingues Martinho

The social role of the farms is, especially, relevant in the rural areas where the socioeconomic problems are, often, more visible. In this perspective, this study aims to investigate the interrelationships of the labour input with other variables inside the farms and assess how the sector may create more employment in a sustainable way. For that, the labour input was, first, correlated with other farm variables and after analysed through factor analysis approaches and cross-section econometric methodologies, considering as basis the Cobb-Douglas and Verdoorn-Kaldor models. The main findings highlight relevant insights to improve the social dimension of the European Union farms. The labour input growth rate is positively influenced by the total output growth rates and negatively impacted by the total productivity growth. The effects from the investment and from the subsidies are residual or not significant.


2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Verdun

This article seeks to shed light on the development over the past decades of the concept of economic governance. It asks what is understood by economic governance and what role the social dimension has played. The article offers an analysis of the problems and possible issues confronting the EU as it seeks ways to address the sovereign debt crisis by embarking on deeper economic integration. The article concludes that from the early days there have been questions about the exact interaction between economic and monetary integration and thus between ‘economic’ and ‘monetary’ union. Despite Delors’ original inclination, few were willing to establish any linkage between EMU and social matters. The crises have again brought out the need to consider the two in tandem. Moreover, with the increased role in economic governance accorded to EU-level institutions, there is a need to rethink the EU democratic model.


Author(s):  
Shannon Dinan

The European Union has no unilateral legislative capacity in the area of social policy. However, the European Commission does play the role of guide by providing a discursive framework and targets for its 28 Member States to meet. Since the late 1990’s, the EU’s ideas on social policy have moved away from the traditional social protection model towards promoting social inclusion, labour activation and investing in children. These new policies represent the social investment perspective, which advocates preparing the population for a knowledge-based economy to increase economic growth and job creation and to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty. The EU began the gradual incorporation of the social investment perspective to its social dimension with the adoption of ten-year strategies. Since 2000, it has continued to set goals and benchmarks as well as offer a forum for Member States to coordinate their social initiatives. Drawing on a series of interviews conducted during a research experience in Brussels as well as official documents, this paper is a descriptive analysis of the recent modifications to the EU’s social dimension. It focuses on the changes created by the Europe 2020 Strategy and the Social Investment Package. By tracing the genesis and evolution of these initiatives, the author identifies four obstacles to social investment in the European Union's social dimension.   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v10i1.263


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 864-883
Author(s):  
Konstantinos ALEXANDRIS POLOMARKAKIS

The shortcomings in the handling of COVID-19 highlighted the salience of health and safety at work and fuelled discussions surrounding the desirability of a European Health Union. This article conceptualises occupational health and safety at the European Union (EU) level as a key driver for the creation of a European Health Union. Through recourse to the area’s roots and its relevance to the tackling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the benefits of putting occupational health and safety in the driving seat are set out. The implications of maintaining a healthy workforce are acute, from both a social and a public health perspective, especially in the time of a pandemic. Relying on a reflective approach that goes beyond the status quo, this article offers pragmatic yet imaginative proposals for strengthening the occupational health and safety acquis. The proposals act as the blueprint for health and safety in the workplace to lay the foundation for a European Health Union and advance the social dimension of the EU.


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