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This paper is part of the research on functional roles of European towns conducted by a group of researchers gathered around the ESPON project 'TOWN'. Building on the systematic analysis of the socio-economic dynamics of 31 European small and medium-sized towns (SMSTs), we identified three profiles of their local economies. The first profile is defined as a dominant 'residential' economy that mostly relies on local activities that satisfy the needs of people in an area (residents, commuters or tourists). The second profile corresponds to a dominant 'productive' economy based on the production of goods and services to be mainly exported and consumed out of its area. The third profile is the mixed type that is characterised by an important share of activities in productive and residential sector with a complementary 'creative-knowledge' dimension, based on entrepreneurship, creativity and collaboration in innovation. Moreover, we analysed the economic performance and the shift in profiles in order to detect in which way towns make choices between residential economy, competitiveness and innovation for their local development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many would agree that the whole world is on the crossroad, and that would be profoundly true for the European Union (EU) as well. At the present time, the EU is attempting to reinforce centralised control of its less developed periphery, and yet its foundations have been shaken by its very core principle of existence - unity between financially responsible and developed countries on the one hand, and spendthrift and less developed countries on the other. In South-Eastern Europe there are six countries that used to share a common socio- political frame within the former Yugoslavia. Today they are independent, but oriented towards the EU that is again similar political form of different countries with different cultures, languages, dominant religions and ethics. In that sense some similarities can be drawn between what is happening today in the EU and past events in the former Yugoslavia. Requirements for unanimity and consensus have slowed down the process of decision-making that has affected the efficiency of the EU in the same way as to what happened in the former Yugoslavia. Moreover, it is known that one of the most powerful tools modern society has at its disposal is business. Academics and practitioners widely support the view that a new era has dawned in which business must adopt a new concept of its purpose and conduct by integrating responsibility into all of its activities. In October 2011 the European Commission published a new policy on corporate social responsibility (CSR) that clearly defined it as a base model for the global competitiveness of the EU. In this paper we explored differences between socially responsible practices of business organisations in four Southeast European countries with common, but different history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]