Bulgaria

Abstract

Bulgaria has a modest population, of 7.2 million people, who are predominantly urbanized and mainly concentrated in the administrative centres of its 28 provinces (National Statistical Institute 2016). Bulgaria is an example of a small economy in Europe, with the lowest GDP per capita (OECD 2017). It is categorized as a low-income country.Firstly, Bulgaria is a democratic republic but one of the low-ranked democracies in Europe (Economist Intelligence Unit 2017). Only 5% of the public trust in the Bulgarian parliament and its political parties (Bertelsmann Stiftung's Transformation Index 2016). It has a very low level of transparency and freedom of press, according to the World Press Freedom Index (2017).Next, corruption is one of the main socio-economic challenges in the country. Indeed, in the most recent Corruption Perceptions Index of Transparency International (Transparency International 2017), Bulgaria was in second-to-last place among the European Union (EU) states. As has been widely acknowledged, corruption increases the share of the informal economy, discourages foreign investment, undermines competitiveness and efficiency, and fosters a patriarchal culture at all levels of society. In this regard, the Global Competitiveness Index (2017) clearly maps the weak spots in the Bulgarian economy-poor working institutions and the lack of innovation.Finally, 10 years after the EU accession, the country is still among the leastdeveloped EU states, with the lowest wage level and purchasing power among member states (Maiväli and Stierle 2013). Bulgaria has one of the highest poverty M. Stefanova (

Sustainable Procurement: Social Clauses and CSR Impacts From a Highway Perspective

“…Furthermore, previous studies have concentrated mainly on construction works (Eadie et al, 2011, Eadie andRafferty,2014;Jiang andWong, 2016, Xia et al, 2018) rather than a highways and roads perspective. In an overview of CSR in Bulgaria, Stefanova and Mihaylov (2020) show that Construction and Real Estate make up 3% of their sample but they do use GEOTECHMIN Group which does carry out Highway works as a case study in relation to COVID19 CSR actions. Simeonov and Stefanova (2015) suggest that while CSR is adopted by a group of highly proactive responsible companies, the majority of Bulgarian businesses practice CSR as ad hoc activities and charitable programmes.…”

“…From this it can be drawn that CSR is not widely used in contracts there in the Highway sector. However, CSR dimensions are a priority corporate goal for 87% of the companies surveyed in Bulgaria, Stefanova and Mihaylov (2020) showing its overall importance. Jigao et al, (2020) do examine the challenges of CSR on Highways schemes in China but do not mention stakeholder perspectives.…”