Corporate Social Responsibility as a Strategic Opportunity for Small Firms during Economic Crises

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyze if there is a direct causal relationship between small firms' orientation toward corporate social responsibility and their competitive success, mediated by innovation and performance. A structural equation model has been applied to a sample of 758 small Spanish firms. The results indicate that, in times of economic crisis, socially responsible strategies are a determining factor in firms' competitiveness. Pragmatic advice for practitioners derives from research results, considering that social responsibility represents an opportunity for small firms in the complex and turbulent time. The findings encourage small firms to manage operations responsibly as a guarantee of market success.

Escala de medida de responsabilidad social en el contexto universitario: una triple visión basada en competencias, formación y participación del estudiante

“…En torno a la RSE, son destacables aquellos trabajos que profundizan en las pequeñas y medianas empresas, analizando el papel tan relevante que este tejido empresarial juega en las regiones y países (Gallardo- Vázquez et al, 2013;Gallardo-Vázquez et al, 2014a, 2014bHerrera-Madueño et al, 2016a, 2016bLeón, Benavides y Castán, 2017;Moneva-Abadía et al, 2018;Valdez-Juárez et al, 2018); por otro lado, trabajos que analizan la RSE en el contexto de las empresas cooperativas, vinculando la actuación socialmente responsable con otras acciones tales como la innovación, certificación, premios recibidos, reputación y performance (Castilla-Polo et al, 2018); igualmente, trabajos que analizan la RSE en el sector turismo, tal como se observa en Font, Guix y Bonilla-Priego (2016), Martínez y Nishiyama (2017) y Tyrrell, Paris y Biaett (2012); así como investigaciones que orientan la RS en el contexto de las instituciones de enseñanza superior.…”

Responsible Innovation in SMEs: A Systematic Literature Review for a Conceptual Model

“…The final cluster with 10% of the references is characterized by studies that analysed the relationship between CSR and performance in SMEs. Previous research has empirically shown that CSR activities in SMEs are a potential driver of a company's performance [63,80,81] and that this positive and significant relationship in micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises is moderated by the size of these organizations; the larger the size, the stronger the relationship [82]. There are also studies that consider this relationship to be partial [59] or even positive but weak [83].…”

“…As an essential part of responsible innovation strategies, the stakeholders identified in the literature are: Customers, employees, environment, suppliers, community, owners/shareholders, R&D, government, competitors, funding agencies/investors, and alliances [15,18,20,21,32,38,41,43,44,48,49,[51][52][53]59,62,63,68,69,80,81,85,86,[91][92][93]96,99,103,104,[106][107][108].…”

CSR-related competitiveness and legitimacy in MSMEs

“…Those works that delve into small and medium-sized companies are noteworthy, analyzing the relevant role that this business fabric plays in regions and countries (Gallardo-Vázquez et al, 2013;Gallardo-Vázquez et al, 2014a, 2014bHerrera -Madueño et al, 2016a, 2016bMachová et al, 2016;León et al, 2017;Moneva-Abadía et al, 2018;Valdez-Juárez et al, 2018;Appiah et al, 2019). In small and medium-sized enterprises-especially microenterprisesowners who are also managers focus primarily on solving day-to-day ISSN 2071-789X…”