B ELGIUM A Hot Topic in Contemporary Management Aimé Heene, Suzan Langenberg, and Nikolay Dentchev The Societal and Institutional Context of CSR in Belgium Belgium, located in the middle of Europe, has approximately ten million (6 million Dutch-speaking, 4 million French-speaking, and about 71,000 German-speaking) inhabitants. The country is known for its early industrialisation. Belgium’s earliest “mindset” for CSR was set through the emergence of the unions in the second half of the 19th century alongside a developing charitable attitude of some entrepreneurs. Literature on the cultural and historical background of Belgium confirms that the phenomenon of collective responsibility for the people’s well-being is the result of centuries of occupation (until 1830) by diverse foreign powers. Because of these occupations a typical inwardness and collective internal defence has developed. This is specifically the case for the Dutch-speaking Northern region of Flanders because this part of Belgium suffered the most under the uninterrupted domination. Until the middle of the 20th century the heavy, large scale steel industry and the coal mining industry dominated the Belgian industrial landscape, especially in the Walloon provinces, the southern, French speaking, part of Belgium; Flanders, the Northern, Dutch speaking, part of Belgium is a typically SME-region, and is in- dustrially more diversified than the southern part. Almost 99 % of all Flemish business activity is in the hands of small and medium sized enterprises (companies with less than 500 employees). These small companies together provide more than 70 % of the employment in the Belgian business environment (Delmotte et al., 2003: 9). Recent social research shows that the Flemish civilian population primarily ex- pects firms to create welfare and well-being (employment, competence develop- ment) in an accountable way (VEV, 2002: 16). A recent survey by GfK World- wide (De Tijd, 2003: 24) shows that Belgians in general develop a high level of trust in professional groups. Managers are the most trusted professional group in the Flemish civilian population: about 59 % of the Flemish civilian population trusts managers and business leaders (VEV, 2002). The same survey showed that 6