Small Business, Champions for Corporate Social Responsibility

While Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has traditionally been the domain of the corporate sector, recognition of the growing significance of the Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (SME) sector has led to an emphasis on their social and environmental impact, illustrated by an increasing number of initiatives aimed at engaging SMEs in the CSR agenda.

CSR has been well researched in large companies, but SMEs have received less attention in this area. Over the past 12 months CSR Network Lesotho has been studying the Lesotho CSR landscape and the aim of the study was to see the progress  and understanding of both the limitations on and opportunities for CSR in SMEs through the exploration of exemplary characteristics in the study companies.

Key areas of investigation were CSR terminology, the influence of managerial values, the nature of SME CSR activities, motivation for and benefits from engaging in CSR, and the challenges faced.

The results of the study demonstrated some of the exemplary goals and principles needed to achieve social responsibility in SMEs, and begin to provide knowledge that could be used to engender learning in other SMEs.

In particular, there is evidence that stakeholder theory may provide a framework in which SMEs and CSR can be understood. SMEs prefer to learn through networking and from their peers, so this is a possible avenue for greater SME engagement in CSR. This would require strong leadership from individuals such as highly motivated owners or managers and from exemplary companies as a whole.

Are you of the same opinion or observation from the findings above? Kindly give us your feedback and contribution on admin@csrnetworkzimbabwe.co.zw