University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

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During the past decades, literature and research have identified some common
characteristics of SMEs, although they have very heterogeneous sizes and
organisational structures. Some examples are: owner managed; bureaucratic thinness
and necessity to solve day-to-day problems; financial turnover; informal relations
and communication; importance of interpersonal relationships; high interrelation
with local community and local environment; often operating in a local network of
SMEs and/or in a local supply chain or a large enterprise’s network of suppliers
(Spence, 1999; Curran and Blackburn, 2001; Murillo and Lozano, 2006; Lepoutre
and Heene, 2006). These characteristics show a significant difference between large
and small/medium firms, as to their organizational structure, relations with the
stakeholders and orientation to a not formalized approach to CSR, and it’s possible to
talk about “implicit CSR” (Matten and Moon, 2004), or “silent CSR” (Jenkins, 2004).
Informal CSR policies adopted by SMEs are favored by the presence of the so called
“social capital” (Chiesi, 2005): as Perrini (2006) emphasizes, whilst large enterprises
focus their approach to CSR by a multistakeholder approach, in SMEs the CSR
practices are based on synergies and relationship among different subjects (owner
and employees, customers and suppliers, and so on). Vice versa, social responsible
behavior is often able to originate and endorse trust links, that are the basis of social
capital. Stocks of social capital (trust, network) tend to be self-reinforcing and
cumulative (Putnam, 1993). The concept of social capital is generally associated with
the intangible assets of reputation, trust, legitimacy, and consensus (Habisch et al.,
2001; Putnam, 1993, 2000; Spence et al., 2003, 2004), the basis of the long-term
performance of SMEs, and especially of SMEs embedded into the local community
in which they operate.
Moreover, SMEs meet with a lot of barriers in implementing formalized CSR
strategies and tools; these barriers prevent SMEs to develop systematic CSR
initiatives because of the perceived costs and complexity of the operation in respect
to their lack of human, technical and organizational resources (i.a.: European
Commission, 2002; European Multistakeholder Forum on CSR, 2004; Luetkenhorst,
2004; Fox, 2005; Jenkins 2006; Lepoutre, Heene, 2006). On the one hand, SMEs do
approach to social responsibility as a difficult and uncertain investment: “difficult”
since the enterprises need to find new (economic and human) resources for CSR
development; “uncertain” since there are not enough empirical cases showing the
benefits connected to social responsibility strategies. On the other hand, enterprises
perceive CSR commitment and initiatives as a complex adventure requiring a
specific know-how they do not have. 8
This paper proposes, on the basis of results of a EU project, a way to overcome the
above mentioned barriers to the adoption of CSR – related tools by implementing a
network-based approach involving SMEs operating in clusters (i.e.: local productive
systems). The approach is based on the conviction that the barriers faced by SMEs
can be overcome in a “networking system” of a cluster, where companies tend to
operate as a meta-organization (Spence, 1999). In a cluster, the local “social capital”
is strengthened by the proximity between firms, the availability of local resources
(economical, material and human), and the close relationship with the local
institutions. “Industrial cluster” in fact, can be defined as a geographically proximate
8 Italian context has similar problems as shown by some recent researches: Sancassiani, 2005; and
Bertolini e al., 2006