CSR and Competitiveness European SMEs - KMU Forschung Austria

CSR and Competitiveness - European SMEs’ Good Practice - Consolidated European Report 51
7 Conclusions
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is generally understood as voluntary initiatives of
private or public organisations going beyond legislative requirements and contractual
obligations (“responsible entrepreneurship“) for the benefit of one or several specific target
groups (as regards SMEs mainly employees, customers, suppliers, business partners, the
society or the environment) while at the same time not disadvantaging one of the other stakeholder
groups. The respective activities do not necessarily need to be initiated solely on
humanitarian purposes but may also be implemented having in mind an improvement of the
organisation’s economic competitiveness/performance.
During the last decade, the concept of CSR is continuously gaining importance with regard to
both, public and private discussion as well as its practical application in European enterprises. It
can, however, be observed that there are considerable differences among the European
Union Member States concerning the (operational) approach to CSR and its spread among
public and policy debate as well as its implementation in companies. So, whereas some of the
analysed countries have considered CSR for decades it is a rather new issue in some of the
others. These differences must not be neglected when comparing the level of public support
and the operative spread of CSR among public and private organisations. So, SMEs in some
countries cannot per se be classified as being “worse” in the field of CSR than those of other
states, if the share of those engaged in CSR is lower). In contrast, these cross-country
differences may be seen as advantageous as those aspects that have already been “learned”
by the more advanced countries can already be taken into account of by those countries not yet
that familiar with CSR.
Companies, also SMEs, are already implementing CSR activities (sometimes even for decades)
but are, in general, not aware on that. Especially the smallest companies are not familiar with
the concept/terminology and often only come in contact with the issue when they read
newspaper articles on large enterprise’s CSR measures. Consequently, they are often sceptical
towards the concept as such and do not see the benefits they may derive from an investment in
CSR.
Nevertheless, SMEs are in general aware of their social responsibility and in most of the
cases not at least reluctant to fulfil it. Either due to intrinsic motivation (i.e. the ethical/moral
standards of “behaving correctly”) or because of extrinsic pressures (i.e. stakeholder expectations)
SMEs become knowingly or unconsciously involved in CSR and, consequently, benefit
from the positive impact on the enterprise’s competitiveness that can be derived thereof.
However, still the majority of European companies setting CSR measures can be considered to
constitute large business entities, strategically using their socially responsible acting in many
cases as marketing instrument whereas SMEs’ CSR decisions are often rather of an ad-hoc
character and refer to occasional events. Nevertheless, the report on hand has shown that CSR
positively contributes to SMEs’ competitiveness as it leads to a competitive advantage,
particularly by improving the company’s image, increasing its customers’ loyalty and fostering
the employees’ motivation and workplace satisfaction. As to this regard it is important that CSR
is not seen to be something “fashionable”, but to develop and apply a CSR strategy that is
embedded in the overall business strategy in order to guarantee its sustainability.
Presently, small and medium-sized enterprises do not take full advantage of the economic
potential inherent in CSR and should be supported to do so as their sustainability and
development considerably influences the well-being and competitiveness of the European
economy.
As to this regard, some challenges will have to be overcome. Thereby, a differentiation
between the macro and micro level has to be made. At macro level the analyses conducted in
this study have shown that both, at European and at individual Member State level a multitude
of different actors deal with the issue of CSR. However, the individual activities do not seem to