Corporate social responsibility in an era of economic crisis: Empty gesture or tool for corporate learning?

The social legitimacy of business actors in EU member states has waxed and waned over the past two decades. Levels of trust in business, as recorded in public opinion polls, tend to increase in good economic times and decrease during recessions. After the financial crisis began in 2007 and mushroomed into the Euro crisis in 2009 and a double-dip recession in 2012, the European public’s confidence in business plummeted.