The Interaction of the EEU Member States and Risks of Their Mutual Trade during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for the Management of Corporate Social Responsibility

The research problem is that the COVID-19 pandemic has become a threat to the sustainable development of the EEU and caused uncertainty in terms of the management of corporate social responsibility. This paper is aimed at identifying the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on sustainable development of the EEU from the perspective of the interaction of the member states of the integration association and their mutual trade risks through the prism of the management of corporate social responsibility. The methodological foundation of the research is composed of the provisions of a comprehensive approach that has been used as a basis for determining the cause-and-effect relationship between the member states of the integration association and their mutual trade risks in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The analysis of statistical data is based on the methodology of econometric theory; in particular, the methods of horizontal and trend analysis. This paper analyzes the measures that were taken by the EEU member states to fight the pandemic of a new coronavirus infection both at the national level and at the level of the EEU institutions. The authors showed the asynchronous nature of measures introduced at the national level, while in certain circumstances the economic inefficiency of the introduction of measures, taken at the supranational level, and the impact of imposed restrictions on the current situation with mutual trade in goods and services, and free movement of workers. It has been substantiated that the examination of the economic interaction of the EEU member states in the period of restrictions dictated by a new coronavirus infection has revealed several endemic problems and had a major impact on the achievement of the main objectives of the integration association, transforming the terms for the management of corporate social responsibility. The originality of the paper is that the unique experience of the integration association of the EEU is for the first time studied from the perspective of the impact of the risks of mutual trade during a pandemic on it through the prism of the management of corporate social responsibility. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.