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  1. Small Business and Social Irresponsibility in Developing Countries: Working Conditions and “Evasion” Institutional Work.Chris Rees, Laura J. Spence & Vivek Soundararajan - 2018 - Business and Society 57 (7):1301-1336.
    Small businesses in developing countries, as part of global supply chains, are sometimes assumed to respond in a straightforward manner to institutional demands for improved working conditions. This article problematizes this perspective. Drawing upon extensive qualitative data from Tirupur’s knitwear export industry in India, we highlight owner-managers’ agency in avoiding or circumventing these demands. The small businesses here actively engage in irresponsible business practices and “evasion” institutional work to disrupt institutional demands in three ways: undermining assumptions and values, dissociating consequences, (...)
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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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  • European and American perspectives on corporate social responsibility.Robert Phillips - 2008 - Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility 17 (1):69-73.
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  • Understanding Ethical Luxury Consumption Through Practice Theories: A Study of Fine Jewellery Purchases.Caroline Moraes, Marylyn Carrigan, Carmela Bosangit, Carlos Ferreira & Michelle McGrath - 2017 - Journal of Business Ethics 145 (3):525-543.
    This paper builds on existing research investigating CSR and ethical consumption within luxury contexts, and makes several contributions to the literature. First, it addresses existing knowledge gaps by exploring the ways in which consumers perform ethical luxury purchases of fine jewellery through interpretive research. Second, the paper is the first to examine such issues of consumer ethics by extending the application of theories of practice to a luxury product context, and by building on Magaudda’s :15–36, 2011) circuit of practice framework. (...)
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  • Unpacking the Drivers of Corporate Social Performance: A Multilevel, Multistakeholder, and Multimethod Analysis.Marc Orlitzky, Céline Louche, Jean-Pascal Gond & Wendy Chapple - 2017 - Journal of Business Ethics 144 (1):21-40.
    The question of what drives corporate social performance has become a vital concern for many managers and researchers of large corporations. This study addresses this question by adopting a multilevel, multistakeholder, and multimethod approach to theorize and estimate the relative influence of macro, meso, and micro factors on CSP. Applying three different methods of variance decomposition analysis to an international sample of 2060 large public companies over a time span of 5 years, our results show that firm-level factors explain the (...)
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  • Does the Business Case Matter? The Effect of a Perceived Business Case on Small Firms’ Social Engagement.Rajat Panwar, Erlend Nybakk, Eric Hansen & Jonatan Pinkse - 2017 - Journal of Business Ethics 144 (3):597-608.
    The business case for social responsibility is one of the most widely studied topics in the business and society literature that focuses on large firms. This attention is understandable because large firms have an obligation to shareholders who, as commonly assumed, seek to maximize returns on their investments, in turn, pressing corporate managers to show that firms’ expenditures in social engagement would pay off. Small firms, on the other hand, rarely face such pressures, yet the BCSR logic is increasingly applied (...)
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  • The Organizational Implementation of Corporate Citizenship: An Assessment Tool and its Application at UN Global Compact Participants. [REVIEW]Dorothée Baumann-Pauly & Andreas Georg Scherer - 2013 - Journal of Business Ethics 117 (1):1-17.
    The corporate citizenship (CC) concept introduced by Dirk Matten and Andrew Crane has been well received. To this date, however, empirical studies based on this concept are lacking. In this article, we flesh out and operationalize the CC concept and develop an assessment tool for CC. Our tool focuses on the organizational level and assesses the embeddedness of CC in organizational structures and procedures. To illustrate the applicability of the tool, we assess five Swiss companies (ABB, Credit Suisse, Nestlé, Novartis, (...)
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  • Theorising Corporate Social Responsibility as an Essentially Contested Concept: Is a Definition Necessary?Adaeze Okoye - 2009 - Journal of Business Ethics 89 (4):613-627.
    Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become indispensable in modern business discourse; yet identifying and defining what CSR means is open to contest. Although such contestation is not uncommon with concepts found in the social sciences, for CSR it presents some difficulty for theoretical and empirical analysis, especially with regards to verifying that diverse application of the concept is consistent or concomitant. On the other hand, it seems unfeasible that the diversity of issues addressed under the CSR umbrella would yield to (...)
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  • (1 other version)European Perspectives on Business Ethics: A Polyphonic Challenge.Laura P. Hartman David Bevan - 2007 - Business and Society Review 112 (4):471-476.
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  • Responsible family ownership in small‐ and medium‐sized family enterprises: an exploratory study.Cristina Aragón Amonarriz & Cristina Iturrioz Landart - 2014 - Business Ethics: A European Review 25 (1):75-93.
    The concept of responsible ownership was originally developed with reference to large, publicly held firms. However, the relevance of small- and medium-sized closely held firms, such as family firms, in all economies and the specific governance and organisational characteristics of these firms require further examination of the responsible ownership concept and its operationalisation. Based on the existing literature, we define the construct of responsible family ownership to fill this gap in responsible ownership theory. We propose a scale that can be (...)
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  • Understanding Communication of Sustainability Reporting: Application of Symbolic Convergence Theory.Mohammed Hossain, Md Tarikul Islam, Mahmood Ahmed Momin, Shamsun Nahar & Md Samsul Alam - 2019 - Journal of Business Ethics 160 (2):563-586.
    The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of rhetoric and rhetorical strategies that are implicit in the standalone sustainability reporting of the top 24 companies of the Fortune 500 Global. We adopt Bormann’s :396–407, 1972) SCT framework to study the rhetorical situation and how corporate sustainability reporting messages can be communicated to the audience. The SCT concepts in the sustainability reporting’s communication are subject to different types of legitimacy strategies that are used by corporations as a validity (...)
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  • 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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  • Influence of National Institutions on the Corporate Social Responsibility Practices of Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises in the Food-processing Industry: Differences Between France and Morocco.Jamal El Baz, Issam Laguir, Magalie Marais & Raffaele Staglianò - 2016 - Journal of Business Ethics 134 (1):117-133.
    This paper analyzes how national institutions impact corporate social responsibility practices for small- and medium-sized enterprises in the food-processing industries of France and Morocco. In this study, CSR practices are defined around two main dimensions: corporate performance and the CSR approach. Qualitative data were collected during semi-structured interviews with SME managers in charge of CSR issues. We then performed a content analysis. Our study shows that there is a distinct difference between the CSR practices adopted by SMEs in France and (...)
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  • The Relevance of Stakeholder Theory and Social Capital Theory in the Context of CSR in SMEs: An Australian Perspective.Suman Sen & James Cowley - 2013 - Journal of Business Ethics 118 (2):413-427.
    The concept of business responsibility, usually termed as corporate social responsibility (CSR), originated in the early 1930s after the Wall Street crash of 1929 exposed corporate irresponsibility in large organisations. The understanding of CSR has evolved since then and its scope has now broadened from mere compliance to corporate laws to active alignment of internal business goals with externally set societal aspirations. Unfortunately, the significance of this multidimensional concept within the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector has continued to be (...)
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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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  • Involving, Countering, and Overlooking Stakeholder Networks in Soft Regulation: Case Study of a Small-to-Medium-Sized Enterprise’s Implementation of SA8000.Katerina Nicolopoulou, Stewart R. Clegg, Ashly H. Pinnington & Manal El Abboubi - 2022 - Business and Society 61 (6):1594-1630.
    To achieve effective stakeholder governance in the context of international social accountability certification requires constructing a network of agreement. In a case study of a small-to-medium-sized enterprise, we examine managers’ attempts at enrolling participants in the supply chain to investigate how they strive to engage these stakeholders. We adopt actor-network theory and sensemaking theory to develop a novel approach to understanding social accountability standards’ certification in stakeholder networks. We argue that the design and operation of any SA standard across a (...)
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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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  • 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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  • (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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  • (3 other versions)The relationship between CSR and corporate strategy in medium-sized companies: evidence from Italy.Lucio Lamberti & Giuliano Noci - 2012 - Business Ethics: A European Review 21 (4):402-416.
    The paper responds to the recent calls for further evidence on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). Drawing on the extant literature, the authors identify four characteristics contended by academicians as peculiarities of SMEs’ approach to CSR: the intrinsic relationship between CSR and corporate strategy motivated by the need to continuously dialogue with stakeholders; the centrality of the entrepreneur's ethos in CSR decisions; the coexistence and the cross‐effect of economically instrumental and ethically motivated CSR policies; and (...)
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  • Organizing Corporate Social Responsibility in Small and Large Firms: Size Matters. [REVIEW]Dorothée Baumann-Pauly, Christopher Wickert, Laura J. Spence & Andreas Georg Scherer - 2013 - Journal of Business Ethics 115 (4):693-705.
    Based on the findings of a qualitative empirical study of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Swiss MNCs and SMEs, we suggest that smaller firms are not necessarily less advanced in organizing CSR than large firms. Results according to theoretically derived assessment frameworks illustrate the actual implementation status of CSR in organizational practices. We propose that small firms possess several organizational characteristics that are favorable for promoting the internal implementation of CSR-related practices in core business functions, but constrain external communication and (...)
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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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  • Why Do SMEs Go Green? An Analysis of Wine Firms in South Africa.Ralph Hamann, James Smith, Pete Tashman & R. Scott Marshall - 2017 - Business and Society 56 (1):23-56.
    Studies on why small and medium enterprises engage in pro-environmental behavior suggest that managers’ environmental responsibility plays a relatively greater role than competitiveness and legitimacy-seeking. These categories of drivers are mostly considered independent of each other. Using survey data and comparative case studies of wine firms in South Africa, this study finds that managers’ environmental responsibility is indeed the key driver in a context where state regulation hardly plays any role in regulating dispersed, rural firms. However, especially proactive firms are (...)
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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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  • Sustainable Entrepreneurship: Is Entrepreneurial will Enough? A North–South Comparison.Martine Spence, Jouhaina Ben Boubaker Gherib & Viviane Ondoua Biwolé - 2011 - Journal of Business Ethics 99 (3):335-367.
    Based on an analysis of 44 cases in Canada, Tunisia, and Cameroon, this research attempts to determine the fundaments of sustainable entrepreneurship (SE) in an international perspective and to shed the light on the potential impact of economic, institutional, and cultural dimensions upon diverse levels of sustainability in smalland medium-size firms (SMEs). Neo-institutional and entrepreneurship theories were combined in an integrative conceptual model to fully embrace the meanings and practices of SE and to question the "culture free" argument of some (...)
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  • The Role of SMEs in Global Production Networks: A Swedish SME’s Payment of Living Wages at Its Indian Supplier.Niklas Egels-Zandén - 2017 - Business and Society 56 (1):92-129.
    Anti-sweatshop activists have turned global production networks into contested organizational fields. Although this contest has triggered the growth of an extensive literature on contested GPNs, the scholarly conversation is still limited in two important ways: First, it ignores or dismisses the role of small and medium-sized enterprises in GPNs and, second, it assumes that firms are driven solely by rational profit-maximizing motives. Based on a study of a Swedish SME’s payment of living wages at its Indian supplier, this article addresses (...)
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  • (3 other versions)The relationship between CSR and corporate strategy in medium-sized companies: evidence from Italy.Lucio Lamberti & Giuliano Noci - 2012 - Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility 21 (4):402-416.
    The paper responds to the recent calls for further evidence on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Drawing on the extant literature, the authors identify four characteristics contended by academicians as peculiarities of SMEs’ approach to CSR: the intrinsic relationship between CSR and corporate strategy motivated by the need to continuously dialogue with stakeholders; the centrality of the entrepreneur's ethos in CSR decisions; the coexistence and the cross-effect of economically instrumental and ethically motivated CSR policies; and (...)
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  • Corporate Social Responsibility in SMEs: A Shift from Philanthropy to Institutional Works?Kenneth Amaeshi, Emmanuel Adegbite, Chris Ogbechie, Uwafiokun Idemudia, Konan Anderson Seny Kan, Mabumba Issa & Obianuju I. J. Anakwue - 2016 - Journal of Business Ethics 138 (2):385-400.
    Corporate Social Responsibility amongst Small and Medium Enterprises is often characterised in the literature as unstructured, informal and ad hoc discretionary philanthropic activities. Drawing insights from recent theoretical/analytical frameworks :52–78, 2010), and on empirical data collected from both Nigeria and Tanzania, we found that CSR practices in SMEs are much more nuanced than previously presented. In addition, SMEs undertake their CSR practices to varying degrees in multiple spaces—i.e. the workplace, marketplace, community and the ecological environment. These CSR practices go beyond (...)
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  • Decoupling from Moral Responsibility for CSR: Employees' Visionary Procrastination at a SME.Tina Sendlhofer - 2020 - Journal of Business Ethics 167 (2):361-378.
    Most studies of corporate social responsibility have focused on the organisational level, while the individual level of analysis has been treated as a ‘black box’ when researching antecedents of CSR engagement or disengagement. This article offers insights into a small and medium-sized enterprise that is recognised as a pioneer in CSR. Although the extant literature suggests that the owner-manager is crucial in the implementation of CSR, this study reveals that employees drive CSR. The employees in the focal firm voluntarily joined (...)
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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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  • (2 other versions)Editorial introduction: interpreting ethical polyphony.David Bevan & Laura Hartman - 2007 - Business Ethics: A European Review 17 (1):64-68.
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  • How Can Responsible Family Ownership be Sustained Across Generations? A Family Social Capital Approach.Cristina Aragón-Amonarriz, Agustín Mateo Arredondo & Cristina Iturrioz-Landart - 2019 - Journal of Business Ethics 159 (1):161-185.
    Responsible family ownership is a combination of the family’s commitment to the family-firm’s stakeholders in the long term and the explicit behaviour of the family members associated with the firm. However, families are not individuals but rather a system of relationships among family members. In such a context, misunderstandings in communication, anachronistic mentalities and different value systems can block the intergenerational transmission of RFO. Consequently, the responsibility of the family towards the FF’s stakeholders may be damaged and the firm’s socially (...)
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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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  • (2 other versions)Editorial introduction: Interpreting ethical polyphony.David Bevan & Laura Hartman - 2007 - Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility 17 (1):64–68.
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