Social Responsibility of Metallurgical Enterprises: Impact on Quality of Life in Monotowns of Russia

The population of monotowns in Russia, accounting for up to 25% of the country's total population, faces the challenge of resilience of the quality of life during periods of political and economic turbulence. Town-forming enterprises are actively involved in the political sphere of monotowns and carry out a variety of corporate social responsibility activities. But the nature of the impact of these activities on the well-being of the population remains unclear. The first section of the paper identifies the theoretical underpinnings of how firms affect quality of life. In the second section, the hypothesis of a significant impact of CSR on quality of life is tested using a fixed effects model. The dependent variables used are the VEB.RF quality of Life Index and the quality of urban environment provided by the Ministry of Construction, Housing and Public Utilities of Russia. The analysis shows that the degree of maturity of sustainable development practices, assessed by experts using the Business Impact Maturity Index methodology, has a positive impact on the quality of life in a monotown. At the same time, the indicators of CSR participation without specification of the format and performance do not demonstrate such a significant impact.