On the Responsibility of the Business Sector and Other Enterprises

The developments in recent years show that corporate cultural and social responsibility (CCSR) – i.e., social responsibility as well as cultural commitment on the part of commercial enterprises – no longer exclusively takes the form of isolated funding and sponsoring measures, but has become much more multifaceted and sophisticated.

It is no longer only a matter of assuming responsibility or of participating in other sectors of society; rather, from the current perspective, considerable importance is being given to continuous reflection on and contextualisation of business activities according to social and cultural criteria. Apart from calculated investment, optimal effectivity has become a primary concern in the context of the cultural commitment of companies.

On the fourth theme evening, representatives from the sectors of business, art and education discussed the extent to which business “ideas” can be reconciled with art, or, from the opposite point of view, how far art will allow itself to be placed on an economic basis.

The experts on the panel – Georg Kapsch, President of the Vienna branch of the Federation of Austrian Industries (Industriellenvereinigung, IV), Thomas Rothschild, literary studies lecturer at Universität Stuttgart, Katharina Sigl, Marketing Director of FESTO, and Annemarie Türk, KKA department head – dealt, in their presentations, with such questions as: How has CCSR developed in recent years? What developments and trends are recognisable, also taking existing crises into account? How is commitment in the area of education, the arts and culture reflected upon and contextualised? Sponsoring belongs to the past; does CCSR belong to the future? Where and how can business “ideas” be reconciled with social values? What synergies emerge in the context of cooperation between business and the arts? Do business and the arts have common goals?

With Günter Kaindlstorfer as moderator, a controversial general discussion ensued about the roles of the state and the business sector; in this context, the participants focussed above all on the issue of responsibility for supporting the arts and culture. Several people pointed out the danger that the state could increasingly shirk its responsibility for providing support for the arts and culture and attempt to transfer more responsibility to private sponsors. At the same time it was clearly stated that the latter would be in contradiction to the self-image of businesses. At this point the question of the tax deductibility of art acquisitions was discussed.

Reference was also made to the possible interests, apart from qualitative criteria, that might influence decision-makers in the assessment of applications for support. The questions of whether representatives of the economic sector were particularly bound by the interests or the image of their companies, and whether public officials were, in this respect, more objective in their decisions, remained undecided. It seemed apparent that in this context the work of advisory councils was indispensable.

Another point that was discussed was the changed attitude of politicians toward supporting the arts and culture. Some of the participants expressed the opinion that politicians were basing their decisions much more strongly on issues of strategic marketing than was the case a few years ago.