Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Literature Review
1ST SEPTEMBER, 2014
Supervisor:
Student Name:
Sue Alcock
Nadhim Mohammed Ameen
Taha
Student Number:
N0539313
Submission Date:
Word Counts:
3300
Introduction:
Over the past decades, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has gained
prominence in the academic literature (Bakker et al., 2005).However,
despite the fact that CSR can be applied to all types of companies,
regardless of their sector or size, mostly it has been investigated on large
company level l (Dell Br'o and Junquera, 2003 Hillary, 2000A, Observatory
small businesses European and medium 0.2002; Spence, 1999; Werner
and Spence, 2004). Also, it is viewed as a vital concept that businesses of
all types and sizes need to understand and address (Charitoudi,
Sariannidis & Giannarakis, 2011: 20).
It has been argued that all organizations have an impact on society and
the environment through their operations, products and services and
through their interaction with key stakeholders and therefore CSR is
important in all firms, large and small (Williams, 2005; Roche, 2002).
However, the literature on CSR has traditionally focused attention on
larger firms. While articles have been calling for research on CSR in small
and medium enterprises (SMEs) since the 1990s, the work to date has
been limited and there is a considerable amount of research needed
(Lapointe et al., 2004; Spence et al., 2003) (article 9)
http://oconnorandkelly.ie/csr-in-smes-and-large-companies/
CSR can be considered a tool to stimulate development due to the
positive relationship between business strategy and social
performance(article 14)
Corporate social responsibility is becoming a significant activity to businesses. There are a lot
of theoretical studies examining corporate social responsibilitys effect on companys
operations (article 24)
There is a large number of diverse and contradictory studies
of how social responsibility exercises influence over the company's financial performance. Nevertheless,
common conclusions about the relation of CSR and performance results of the company havent been received
yet:
Raynard and Forstater (2002) assess the impact of CSR on small and
medium enterprises (SMEs), and they found that SMEs have more
opportunities than risks when carrying out CSR activities. In this sense,
they held that the relationship between enterprises and civil society has
radically changed, with the new focus being environmental and social
issues, rather than corruption.
There are basic CSR issues that all SMEs have a responsibility for,
amongst them the creation of a good working environment where
diversity is encouraged, the fair distribution of wealth in am community,
and the protection of the environment. SMEs are often portrayed badly in
relation to such basic responsibilities (Bacon et al., 1996; Gibb, 2000;
Hillary, 2000). However, as this paper demonstrates, this is not
necessarily the case, and there are companies in the U.K. who have
decided to embrace the concepts of CSR and sustainability and who
exemplify good practice (article 11)
There is a vast academic literature on CSR given the high ranking that this
issue has created in theoretical and managerial discussions (Lindgreen
and Swaen, 2010). The review below concentrates on the two aspects that
impact on the study being conducted. (article 16) one is. Others
.
related
to
the
development
of
the
community.
Finally,
business
opportunities,
and
influencing
the
potential
For
many
companies
this
has
been
the
first
stage
in
Please see article 22 from page 5 to 14, it is very important for my topic!!!
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) can build reputation and lead to societal
and competitive advantage, which can be especially useful for small and
medium sized enterprises (SME) with limited resources (article 23).
SMEs can strategically use CSR activities in order to develop a competitive
advantage through differentiation by a creating societal advantage.
During the recent years, small and medium sized enterprises have taken an
increased number of initiatives aiming at engaging in CSR (Jenkins, 2006).
CSR in SMEs is less formal and more intuitive than in larger enterprises, but
that does not make it less valuable (European Commission, 2007).
SMEs face challenges when implementing CSR activities, which can be
transformed into opportunities. However, SMEs have difficulty to identify key
stakeholder issues (Jenkins, 2006), which is a vital part of transforming CSR
activities to an economic advantage.
The SMEs which participated in the current study engaged in CSR activities
without an intended strategy but rather with an emergent strategy, which
emerged because of the changes of the external environment. Therefore, the
SMEs did not fully exploit the opportunities of using their CSR activities to
enhance their competitive advantage (article 23).