Overview: Intrinsic CSR Across Europe

Abstract

Many studies point to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) as a crucial actor within Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) with high engagement due to personal, trust-based values, and a regional anchor. This regional foundation seems to effectively punish irresponsible practices. Because such idiosyncrasies are reported from ample countries this situation should be further investigated to better understand SMEs’ social impact far beyond explicit and formal CSR systems. Therefore, this section investigates the European SME–CSR nexus. Namely, it asks: Is there a global approach to CSR that can be found in SMEs from different cultural backgrounds, independent from their market economies, language regions, religion, legal/political systems? Or are there regional approaches to CSR and if so, what are their origins or determinants? Might they eventually be local culture, political habits, or markets? To what extent do the identified CSR agendas allow categorisation according to explicit/implicit CSR? Other cross-national studies mainly looked at Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) or focus on differences in governmental policies fostering CSR but seldom on CSR in SMEs in relation to their economic and cultural background. This section seeks to close this gap by enabling an understanding of how parameters such as supranational SME values and tradition rather than market economy or institutional frameworks influence small business CSR.