The competitive influence of corporate social responsibility and corporate social disclosure in Italian small and medium sized companies: Focus on disclosure and competitive drivers1

Abstract

There has been growing attention paid to Corporate Social Responsibility @CSR) over the last forty years, among academics, companies, not‐for profit organisations, public sector organisations, and citizens (Mathews, 1997). At the same time, increasing interest has been paid to the external communication of CSR practices, through Corporate Social Disclosure (CSD), and the role CSD can play in helping to improve competitive drivers linked to the implementation of CSR strategies (Porter and Kramer, 2006). This paper aims to fill a gap in the literature by analysing CSD in Italian SMEs that have been found in the past to use best CSR practices. It investigates CSR knowledge, CSD media and CSD competitive outcomes. It is based on an internal perspective, reporting the results of a questionnaire submitted to the companies’ CSR officers. The research shows that all Italian SMEs investigated in this study (all of which have been found in the past to use best CSR practices) have, as would be expected, an overall knowledge about CSR topics. The most popular CSR tools are: ISO 9001, 14001 and SA8000 certification, codes of ethics and sustainability reports. The website is the most used CSD media, followed by sustainability reports and ethics codes, with different levels of stakeholder interest perceived in these different media. Half of companies perceive benefits from the implementation of CSD. In particular, about two thirds of respondents stated that CSD had helped to improve their competitive drivers. The analysis reveals different results between companies that started CSR more than two years ago, in comparison with those that started CSR less than two years ago.