Public governance and Territorial Social Responsibility: The Italian case – Marche Region

Abstract Purpose: Territorial Social Responsibility (TSR) is founded on the rediscovery of the values shared by economic, social and institutional stakeholders within a territory. After having analysed how TSR has been adopted in the EU policies and in the Italian national plan, the aim of our research is the evaluation of the Italian local government’s initiatives to promote Corporate Social Responsibility by means of public-private networks. Socially responsible-oriented partnerships among local and private partners indeed can be considered as a new generation of policies that are the result of a common path founded on collaboration. Methodology: The empirical study is focused on the “Regione Marche” experience, which is an example of shared territorial governance and of a practice model aimed at promoting a territorial sustainable development. Findings: The conditions for the project’s success were represented by internal factors (the attitude toward social responsibility of institutional stakeholders, companies and other entities involved in pre-existing CSR projects) and by external factors, represented by European and national regulations for the promotion of CSR. Practical/Policy implications: In order to reinforce the contribution of the local government it is necessary to develop a concrete agenda for regulatory, cultural and technical issues, as well as incentives to certified companies (e.g. improved credit access, quality certifications, fiscal incentives, simpler administration, and project subsidies) capable of overcoming the logic of ‘spot’ interventions and opportunistic behaviour.