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  1. Responsible Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries: Understanding the Realities and Complexities.Fara Azmat & Ramanie Samaratunge - 2009 - Journal of Business Ethics 90 (3):437-452.
    Developing countries have recently experienced a burgeoning of small-scale individual entrepreneurs (SIEs) – who range from petty traders to personal service workers like small street vendors, barbers and owners of small shops – as a result of market-based reforms, rapid urbanisation, unemployment, landlessness and poverty. While SIEs form a major part of the informal workforce in developing countries and contribute significantly to economic growth, their potential is being undermined when they engage in irresponsible and deceptive business practices such as overpricing, (...)
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  • Social Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics: Does Social Equal Ethical?Elizabeth Chell, Laura J. Spence, Francesco Perrini & Jared D. Harris - 2016 - Journal of Business Ethics 133 (4):619-625.
    This editorial to the special issue addresses the often overlooked question of the ethical nature of social enterprises. The emerging social entrepreneurship literature has previously been dominated by enthusiasts who fail to critique the social enterprise, focusing instead on its distinction from economic entrepreneurship and potential in solving social problems. In this respect, we have found through the work presented herein that the relation between social entrepreneurship and ethics needs to be problematized. Further, we find that a range of conceptual (...)
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  • (1 other version)Little big firms? Corporate social responsibility in small businesses that do not compete against big ones.Rune Dahl Fitjar - 2011 - Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility 20 (1):30-44.
    This article examines the drivers and barriers for corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the Norwegian graduate uniform industry, which is a market devoid of large corporations, consisting entirely of two small businesses. It finds that these small businesses' CSR activities are not particularly well explained by the existing literature on CSR in small- and medium-sized enterprises, which assumes the presence of large competitors. This raises the question of whether small businesses that do not compete against large corporations may actually behave (...)
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  • Implementing Responsible Business Behavior from a Strategic Management Perspective: Developing a Framework for Austrian SMEs.Daniela Ortiz Avram & Sven Kühne - 2008 - Journal of Business Ethics 82 (2):463-475.
    This paper contributes to a growing body of literature analyzing the social responsibilities of SMEs (Sarbutts, 2003, Journal of Communication Management 7(4), 340-347; Castka et al., 2004, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management 11, 140-149; Enderle, 2004, Business Ethics: A European Review 14(1), 51-63; Fuller and Tian, 2006, Journal of Business Ethics 67, 287-304; Jenkins, 2006, Journal of Business Ethics 67, 241-256; Lepoutre and Heene, 2006, Journal of Business Ethics 67, 257-273; Roberts, 2003, Journal of Business Ethics 44(2), 159-170; Williamson (...)
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  • Responsibility and Informal CSR in Formal Cameroonian SMEs.Geert Demuijnck & Hubert Ngnodjom - 2013 - Journal of Business Ethics 112 (4):-653-665.
    In this article, we explore the implicit conceptions of business ethics and social responsibility of owners−managers of small and medium enterprises (SME) in Cameroon. While using a hermeneutical approach, our main objective is to clarify how Sub-Saharan African business people themselves understand and define corporate responsibility in their particular economic and political environment. Our aim is not to deliver an empirical study of business practices and management behavior in SMEs. We wish to discuss which responsibilities they themselves judge to be (...)
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  • On the impact of corporate social responsibility on poverty in Cambodia in the light of Sen’s capability approach.Maike J. Schölmerich - 2013 - Asian Journal of Business Ethics 2 (1):1 - 33.
    Abstract The debate on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been going on for decades, without leading to a clearer understanding of the term. Furthermore, the current literature on the topic remains relatively silent on the actual impact of CSR, especially the impact on issues of international development, for example poverty reduction in the Global South. By developing a conceptual assessment framework with a bipolar differentiated definition of CSR and a Sen-based notion of poverty, the article analyses the effects and impact (...)
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  • (1 other version)Going green: the evolution of micro-business environmental practices.Simon Parry - 2012 - Business Ethics 21 (2):220-237.
    This paper examines the process through which micro-businesses ‘go green’. It builds upon previous studies that have identified the different drivers of this greening process. However, rather than a static focus on specific drivers, the study articulates the evolution of environmental practices over time. The paper uses comparative case studies of six micro-businesses to build a composite sequence analysis that plots the greening process from its roots through to large-scale and ambitious ecological projects. The study identifies three distinct stages that (...)
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  • The Growth of Private Regulation of Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains: Mission Impossible for Western Small- and Medium-Sized Firms? [REVIEW]Jette Steen Knudsen - 2013 - Journal of Business Ethics 117 (2):387-398.
    Multinational corporations (MNCs) have come under pressure to adopt private regulatory initiatives such as supplier codes of conduct in order to address poor working conditions in global supply chain factories. While a well-known literature explores drivers and outcomes of such monitoring schemes, this literature focuses mainly on large firms and has ignored the growing integration of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) into global supply chains. Furthermore, the literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in SMEs primarily emphasizes domestic initiatives and not (...)
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  • (1 other version)Going green: the evolution of micro-business environmental practices.Simon Parry - 2012 - Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility 21 (2):220-237.
    This paper examines the process through which micro-businesses ‘go green’. It builds upon previous studies that have identified the different drivers of this greening process. However, rather than a static focus on specific drivers, the study articulates the evolution of environmental practices over time. The paper uses comparative case studies of six micro-businesses to build a composite sequence analysis that plots the greening process from its roots through to large-scale and ambitious ecological projects. The study identifies three distinct stages that (...)
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  • Slipstreaming the Larger Boats: Social Responsibility in Medium-Sized Businesses.Lutz Preuss & Jack Perschke - 2010 - Journal of Business Ethics 92 (4):531-551.
    Studies into corporate social responsibility (CSR) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have suggested that small businesses are different to the large companies on which CSR research usually focusses. Extending this argument, this article raises the question what differences in approaches to CSR there are within the SME category. Analysing the CSR strategy and performance of a medium-sized fashion retailer in the United Kingdom through manager interviews as well as customer and employee surveys, the article develops an analytical framework of (...)
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  • (1 other version)Little big firms? Corporate social responsibility in small businesses that do not compete against big ones.Rune Dahl Fitjar - 2011 - Business Ethics: A European Review 20 (1):30-44.
    This article examines the drivers and barriers for corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the Norwegian graduate uniform industry, which is a market devoid of large corporations, consisting entirely of two small businesses. It finds that these small businesses' CSR activities are not particularly well explained by the existing literature on CSR in small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises, which assumes the presence of large competitors. This raises the question of whether small businesses that do not compete against large corporations may actually behave (...)
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  • (2 other versions)CSR in SMEs: Do SMEs matter for the CSR agenda?Mette Morsing & Francesco Perrini - 2008 - Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility 18 (1):1-6.
    In this paper we argue that the collective grandness of small business is often underestimated in CSR research and policy-making. We emphasize the importance of understanding the contexts and the ways in which small- and medium-sized companies engage in CSR and how they differ from multinational companies. We suggest that it might be that researchers and practitioners are asking the wrong questions in their ambitions to prove 'the business case for CSR'. Perhaps we should rather focus on the 'how' and (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Pushing forward sme csr through a network: An account from the catalan model.David Murillo & Josep M. Lozano - 2008 - Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility 18 (1):7-20.
    This paper presents the results of a Catalan project in which an academic institution acted as a practitioner to promote corporate social responsibility (CSR) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The project involved the establishment of a working network with intermediate organisations and the creation of specific tools for the purpose. The paper is set up as a case study, emphasising inclusion, representativity and legitimacy as key elements for the successful construction of a network to promote CSR in SMEs. It (...)
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  • Technology, Megatrends and Work: Thoughts on the Future of Business Ethics.Premilla D’Cruz, Shuili Du, Ernesto Noronha, K. Praveen Parboteeah, Hannah Trittin-Ulbrich & Glen Whelan - 2022 - Journal of Business Ethics 180 (3):879-902.
    To commemorate 40 years since the founding of the Journal of Business Ethics, the editors in chief of the journal have invited the editors to provide commentaries on the future of business ethics. This essay comprises a selection of commentaries aimed at creating dialogue around the theme Technology, Megatrends and Work. Of all the profound changes in business, technology is perhaps the most ubiquitous. There is not a facet of our lives unaffected by internet technologies and artificial intelligence. The Journal (...)
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  • Beyond the Moral Portrayal of Social Entrepreneurs: An Empirical Approach to Who They Are and What Drives Them.Sophie Bacq, Chantal Hartog & Brigitte Hoogendoorn - 2016 - Journal of Business Ethics 133 (4):703-718.
    This paper questions the taken-for-granted moral portrayal depicted in the extant literature and popular media of the devoted social entrepreneurial hero with a priori good ethical and moral credentials. We confront this somewhat ‘idealistic’ and biased portrayal with insights from unique large-scale data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2009 survey on social entrepreneurship covering Belgium and The Netherlands. Binary and multinomial logistic regressions indicate that the intention and dominance of perceived social value creation over economic value creation is indeed what (...)
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  • Government Intervention, Peers’ Giving and Corporate Philanthropy: Evidence from Chinese Private SMEs.Yongqiang Gao & Taïeb Hafsi - 2015 - Journal of Business Ethics 132 (2):433-447.
    Institutional and resource dependence theories point at the roles of government and peers’ behavior as determinants of firms’ social behavior. This is tested in this research, with important implications for both theory and practice. Using data from a national survey of Chinese private small- and medium-sized enterprises in 2008, this paper examines the role of government intervention in corporate philanthropy, as well as the moderation effect of peers’ giving. Results show that government intervention, when using a Marketization Index as a (...)
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  • Proximity and Micro-Enterprise Manager’s Ethics: A French Empirical Study of Responsible Business Attitudes.Jean-Marie Courrent & Katherine Gundolf - 2009 - Journal of Business Ethics 88 (4):749-762.
    This research article analyses the influence of micro-enterprise managers' perception of their relationship to their environment on the nature of their ethics. We carried out a survey with the head managers of 125 French MEs, providing a large set of primary data. Two types of variables were defined: variables related to the nature and intensity of the relationships between ME managers and their social environment, and variables related to the ethical framework that the managers used. The results of univariate and (...)
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  • (2 other versions)CSR in SMEs: do SMEs matter for the CSR agenda?Mette Morsing & Francesco Perrini - 2008 - Business Ethics: A European Review 18 (1):1-6.
    In this paper we argue that the collective grandness of small business is often underestimated in CSR research and policy‐making. We emphasize the importance of understanding the contexts and the ways in which small‐ and medium‐sized companies engage in CSR and how they differ from multinational companies. We suggest that it might be that researchers and practitioners are asking the wrong questions in their ambitions to prove ‘the business case for CSR’. Perhaps we should rather focus on the ‘how’ and (...)
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  • From Rationality to Emotionally Embedded Relations: Envy as a Signal of Power in Stakeholder Relations.Marjo Siltaoja & Merja Lähdesmäki - 2015 - Journal of Business Ethics 128 (4):837-850.
    Although stakeholder salience theory has received a great deal of scholarly attention in the business ethics and management literature, the theory has been criticized for overemphasizing rationality in managerial perceptions. We argue that it is important to better understand what socially constructed emotions signal in business relations, and we posit the role of envy as a discursive resource used to signal and construct the asymmetrical power relations between small business owner–managers and their stakeholders. Our study is based on a qualitative (...)
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  • Why and How Does Social Responsibility Differ Among SMEs? A Social Capital Systemic Approach.Cristina Aragón, Lorea Narvaiza & Maite Altuna - 2016 - Journal of Business Ethics 138 (2):365-384.
    The existing analysis of heterogeneous social responsibility in small and medium enterprises has considered the effects of individual factors. However, no holistic analysis has been performed on how different factors of heterogeneity interact and how they collectively affect SR in SMEs. Here, we propose a new systemic approach—employing the social capital concept—with the aim of identifying how and why SR is built diversely in SMEs. In particular, we focus on a positive and holistic perspective that integrates the factors proposed in (...)
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  • Criteria for Responsible Business Practice in SMEs: An Exploratory Case of U.K. Fair Trade Organisations.Geoff Moore, Richard Slack & Jane Gibbon - 2009 - Journal of Business Ethics 89 (2):173-188.
    This paper develops a set of 16 criteria, divided into four groupings, for responsible business practice (RBP) in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) drawn from the existing SME/RBP literature. The current lack of a general set of criteria against which such activity can be judged is noted and this deficit is redressed. In order to make an initial assessment in support of the criteria so derived, an exploratory feasibility study of RBP in U.K. Fair Trade organisations was conducted. The findings (...)
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  • (1 other version)Construction of owner-manager identity in corporate social responsibility discourse.Merja Lähdesmäki - 2012 - Business Ethics: A European Review 21 (2):168-182.
    This article examines the different discursive resources on which small business owner–managers draw when understanding their sense of self in relation to corporate social responsibility. In the small business context, identity provides a justifiable framework to study corporate social responsibility, as decisions regarding socially responsible activities are mainly taken by managers and stem from their sense of who they are in the world. On the basis of 25 thematic interviews with owner–managers, two broad discursive resources were found that describe how (...)
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  • (1 other version)Corporate social responsibility and aging workforces: an explorative study of corporate social responsibility implementation in small- and medium-sized enterprises.Franz Josef Gellert & Frank Jan Graaf - 2012 - Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility 21 (4):353-363.
    Although critical differences exist between large companies and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), limited empirical research has been done on human resource (HR)-related corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this paper we study aging workforce management (AWM) as a component of CSR. Our study was conducted in the Netherlands through a randomly distributed online questionnaire. Managers and team leaders of 201 SMEs responded. The data were analyzed using multiple hierarchical regression analysis. Our results are twofold: first, findings suggest that CSR policies (...)
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  • SMEs in their Own Right: The Views of Managers and Workers in Vietnamese Textiles, Garment, and Footwear Companies.Angie Ngoc Tran & Søren Jeppesen - 2016 - Journal of Business Ethics 137 (3):589-608.
    This article contributes to the limited literatures on small- and medium-size enterprises and corporate social responsibility. Using an institutional theoretical framework, we analyzed fieldwork interviews with twenty SMEs and perspectives of 165 SME managers and workers in textiles, garment, and footwear industries, the most important wage-earning sector in Vietnam. Having understood in the context of a developing “market economy with socialist orientation”, we find that socially responsible practices and expectations developed long before the arrival of CSR as a western concept (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Pushing forward SME CSR through a network: an account from the Catalan model.David Murillo & Josep M. Lozano - 2008 - Business Ethics 18 (1):7-20.
    This paper presents the results of a Catalan project in which an academic institution acted as a practitioner to promote corporate social responsibility (CSR) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The project involved the establishment of a working network with intermediate organisations and the creation of specific tools for the purpose. The paper is set up as a case study, emphasising inclusion, representativity and legitimacy as key elements for the successful construction of a network to promote CSR in SMEs. It (...)
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  • Corporate social responsibility and aging workforces: an explorative study of corporate social responsibility implementation in small- and medium-sized enterprises.Franz Josef Gellert & Frank Jan de Graaf - 2012 - Business Ethics: A European Review 21 (4):353-363.
    Although critical differences exist between large companies and small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), limited empirical research has been done on human resource (HR)‐related corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this paper we study aging workforce management (AWM) as a component of CSR. Our study was conducted in the Netherlands through a randomly distributed online questionnaire. Managers and team leaders of 201 SMEs responded. The data were analyzed using multiple hierarchical regression analysis. Our results are twofold: first, findings suggest that CSR policies (...)
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  • Linking owner–managers' personal sustainability behaviors and corporate practices in SMEs: The moderating roles of perceived advantages and environmental hostility.Sonia Chassé & Jean-Marie Courrent - 2018 - Business Ethics: A European Review 27 (2):127-143.
    Drawing on managerial discretion and conflicting institutional logics literature, this study investigates the relation between the personal sustainability behaviors of owner–managers and the corporate sustainability practices of SMEs. The research proposes a contingency model that assesses the moderating effects of perceived economic advantages and environmental hostility on this relationship. Based on linear hierarchical multiple regression analyses of a cross-sectoral sample of French SMEs, the results suggest a positive influence of the manager's PSB on the SME's CS practices that appears to (...)
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