Title: Social responsibility as driver of competitiveness in SMEs

Authors: M. Isabel Sánchez-Hernández; Dolores Gallardo-Vázquez

Addresses: Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Business Management and Sociology Department, Av Elvas s/n, 06006 Badajoz, Spain ' Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Accounting and Financial Economy Department, Av Elvas s/n, 06006 Badajoz, Spain

Abstract: Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are considered as main actors for sustaining economy because of their capacity in enhancing local economies output and fostering regional development and population welfare. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that social responsibility (SR) is the adequate management framework of SMEs competitiveness in the globalisation era. Supported by the academic literature, the article starts by the contextualisation and definition of SR and competitiveness in SMEs in order to justify a causal relationship between both constructs to be empirically tested. With structural equation modelling (SEM) as selected method and a sample of 758 enterprises with less than 50 employees in the region of Extremadura in Spain, the analysis reported satisfactory results. The main conclusion after the statistical analysis procedure indicated that there is a significant positive relationship between corporate social orientation and competitive success.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility; CSR; SMEs; small and medium-sized enterprises; SEM; structural equation modelling; competitiveness; competitive success; innovation; firm performance; Spain; corporate social orientation.

DOI: 10.1504/JGBA.2016.075708

Journal for Global Business Advancement, 2016 Vol.9 No.2, pp.167 - 178

Published online: 01 Apr 2016 *

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