The Role of Owner-Managers in Shaping CSR Activity of Romanian SMEs

Tomina Saveanu,Sorana Saveanu,Maria-Madela Abrudan,Alina Badulescu,Daniel Badulescu

doi:10.3390/su132011546

Abstract

Background: While corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a field of study that has gained popularity in the last years, the approaches of small and medium enterprises’ (SME) contributions to social responsibility are under debate. Moreover, studies on Romanian CSR demonstrate the incremental development of such practices, while the social responsibility of Romanian small business is an understudied topic. In this paper we present data regarding the role of owner-managers in shaping the CSR actions of their SMEs in Romania, along with their opinions on what social responsibility is. Methods: We analyze two sources of data: quantitative research, based on 109 questionnaires collected from SMEs in the western part of Romania, and also a qualitative study, based on 17 interviews with owner-managers of small businesses. The quantitative data presents the reality of social responsibility actions and the relationship with manager’s attitudes, while the qualitative focuses on a better understanding of owner-managers opinions on social responsibility. Results: Our data confirms the high impact of owner-managers’ values and orientations in shaping the degree and forms of the CSR of their firms, and reveals definitions of CSR given by practitioners. Conclusions: Our data reveals that the way managers’ see the role of business in providing social welfare influences their decisions to participate in different types of CSR actions. Through interviews we show that managers, whether their firm has formal CSR actions or not, consider being fair and doing business at their best as part of CSR. Those that also displayed other forms of CSR are those who considered it their duty to give back to the community. The interest of stakeholders was displayed mostly by those who have incremental interest in CSR.

Highlights

The social responsibility of different organizations is a topic with ever increasing interest from practitioners, policy makers and academics
Almost half of the firms included in our study are engaged charity and environmental protection as domains in which they carry out corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities
At the core of any social behavior of the firms we can find the ethical dimension and the need to support the sustainable development of the community. These findings suggest that, in order to narrow the gaps in the social involvement of Romanian firms [55], there should be more training and access to information regarding available mechanism. owner-managers’ knowledge on CSR, though it could be linked with different theoretical contributions, is sparce and unsystematic

Summary

Introduction

The social responsibility of different organizations is a topic with ever increasing interest from practitioners, policy makers and academics. There are several sources for the concept of social responsibility: first, the business-ethics approach, initiated by Bowen’s statement that businesses have an obligation to promote policies and actions desirable for society [1]. In the same line of thought, the sustainable development approach promoted by the Brundtland Report [2] encourages the business sector to consider its impact on future generations. In this regard, social responsibility can be seen as the business sector’s contribution to sustainable development [3]. A strong theoretical argument for the undertaking of social-responsibility actions by companies is the stakeholder-management approach [4].

Objectives

Results

Conclusion