• CR & SME's

CR & SME's

This study focuses on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices in European Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

Based on a review of general CSR situation in seven European countries -Austria, Finland, Germany, Norway, Poland, Romania and Spain – and a focussed study of 35 good practice case studies, the authors show that there exists a positive relationship between the SMEs’ CSR activities and their enhanced competitiveness.

The observable impact may be internal (i.e. benefiting the company or its employees) or external (i.e. benefiting a target group outside of the enterprise, such as customers, the society or the environment). Higher employee satisfaction, better publicity and improved customer loyalty are some of the important beneficial outcome of socially responsible acting.

Nevertheless, the study also notes that the full potential of CSR has not yet been used by European SMEs. It recommends the following measures in this regard:

• further familiarisation of the general public and enterprises (with a specific focus on SMEs) with CSR
• taking into account the specific characteristics of SMEs in designing individual (public) initiatives
• adoption of CSR by public authorities, NGOs as well as large enterprises to act as a role model for the private sector
• setting of incentives to make SMEs engage in CSR
• finding efficient and effective ways and possibilities to approach SMEs, e.g. by taking advantage of intermediaries
• providing SMEs with a tool allowing them to track the cost-efficiency ratio of CSR activities

• Full text of document
• Publisher details
• Send to a friend