Relationship between social responsibility and performance in small and medium enterprises: Literature review

Abstract

The interest aroused by the social responsibility in the academic and professional arena is encouraging endless discussion in many forums. However, the attention paid to large corporations and small- and mediumenterprises (SMEs) has been different. Therefore, in order to contribute to the understanding of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the field of SMEs, it has been conducted a review of studies that have focussed on the impact that some factors cause on the adoption of socially responsible practices or how the development of these practices affects organizational performance from a financial perspective.The review corroborates how the manager, with his values and ethical beliefs, plays a main role in their firm strategic and sustainable choices and how the adequate management of the relations with stakeholders positively affects its performance.The studies used for the literature review suggest two different paths to encourage the implementation of sustainability practices: reformulate legal regulations or providing evidence on how a responsible behaviour can result in competitive improvements.

Keywords

• Small and medium enterprises
• social responsibility
• bibliometrics
• performance
• financial performance