Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Corporate Social Responsibility and Stakeholder Relations – The Perspective of German Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Ethics in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises

Abstract

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have not only their own way of understanding Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), but also their own way of applying it. This paper explores the understanding of CSR by SME owners and analyses their corporate activities. The qualitative survey conducted among 33 SMEs in the metropolitan region of Hamburg reveals that owners of SMEs feel a strong responsibility towards their employees and – even further – towards their families. The fact that employees are the key stakeholders of SMEs is taken into account when applying Freeman’s stakeholder model on SMEs. Moreover, the survey reveals that the engagement of SMEs has a strong local focus and is done in an intuitive “hands-on” way. SMEs did not implement CSR strategies and they do not intend to do so. Their non-communication of CSR reflects this attitude. The challenge for SMEs seems to be the treatment of CSR as a competitive advantage by implementing it in the companies’ overall strategy.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • ASU (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Selbständiger Unternehmer e.V., 2007). Ergebniszusammenfassung einer Mitgliederumfrage zu Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). http://www.familienunternehmer.eu/www/doc/2300d8171ca46be1ee5a7 2d2837c1b6d.pdf. Accessed September 15 2007.

  • Bader, N., Bauerfeind, R., Giese, C. (2007). Corporate Social Responsibility bei kleinen und mittelständischen Unternehmen in Berlin. Berlin: Oktoberdruck.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beschorner, T. (2004). Unternehmensethische Untersuchungen aus gesellschaftlicher Perspektive. Von der gesellschaftsorientierten Unternehmenslehre zur unternehmensorientierten Gesellschaftslehre. Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensethik , 5(3), 255–276.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowie, N. (1999). Business Ethics: A Kantian Perspective. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, A.B. (1979)..A three dimensional conceptual model of corporate social performance. Academy of Management Review, 4(4), 497–506.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, A.B. (1991). The Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility: Toward the Moral Management of Organizational Stakeholders. Business Horizons, 34(4), 39–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, A.B. (1998). The Four Faces of Corporate Citizenship. Business and Society Review, 100(1), 1–7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crane, A. & Matten, D. (2007). Business Ethics. Managing Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability in the Age of Globalization. 2. edition, Oxford/ New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • European Commission (2001). Promoting a European framework for Corporate Social Responsibility. Green paper, COM(2001) 366.

    Google Scholar 

  • European Commission (2002). European SMEs and social and environmental responsibility. Observatory of European SMEs 2002(4), Brussels.

    Google Scholar 

  • European Commission (2003). The new SME definition. User guide and model declaration European. Commission Recommendation, 2003/361/EC.

    Google Scholar 

  • European Commission (2006).Implementing the Partnership for Growth and Jobs: Making Europe a Pole of Excellence on Corporate Social Responsibility. COM(2006)136.

    Google Scholar 

  • European Commission (2007). Gesellschaftliches Engagement in kleinen und mittelständischen Unternehmen in Deutschland – aktueller Stand und zukünftige Entwicklung. February 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  • Forsa (Gesellschaft für Sozialforschung und statistische Analysen mbH, 2005). Corporate Social Responsibility in Deutschland. http://www.insm.de/campaignscooperations/forsa/csr/ downloads/Umfrageergebnisse_CSR.pdf. Accessed 14 February 2007.

  • Freeman, R.E. (1984). Strategic Management. A Stakeholder Approach. Boston: Prentice Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freeman, R.E. (2004). The Stakeholder Approach Revisited. Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensethik, 5(3), 228–241.

    Google Scholar 

  • GILDE (Wirtschaftsförderungsgesellschaft der Stadt Detmold GmbH, Eds.) (2007). Gesellschaftliches Engagement in kleinen und mittelständischen Unternehmen in Deutschland. Aktueller Stand und zukünftige Entwicklung. http://www.csr-mittelstand.de/pdf/Studie_CSR_im_Mittelstand_010207.pdf. Accessed 21 July 2007.

  • Habisch, A. (2003). Corporate Citizenship. Gesellschaftliches Engagement von Unternehmen in Deutschland. Berlin: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Habisch, A. (2004). Social responsibility, social capital and SMEs. In Spence, L., Habisch, A., Schmidpeter, R. (Eds.), Responsibility and Social Capital: The World of Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (pp.24–35). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmilan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamann, E.-M., Habisch, A., Pechlaner, H. (2009). Values that create value: socially responsible business practices in SMEs – empirical evidence from German companies. Business Ethics: A European Review, 18(1), 37–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hauser, H.-E. & Wolter, H.-J. (2007). Die volkswirtschaftliche Bedeutung der Familienunternehmen. Studie des Institut für Mittelstandsforschung Bonn im Auftrag der Stiftung Familienunternehmen, IfM-Materialien No. 172.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holzborn, A. (2006). Corporate Social Responsibility in kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen. Grundlagen – Instrumente – Perspektiven. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Müller.

    Google Scholar 

  • Institut für Mittelstandsforschung Bonn, IfM (2002). Corporate Citizenship: Das Unternehmen als ‘guter Bürger’. Kurzfassung. Schriften zur Mittelstandsforschung Nr. 94 NF. Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Institut für Mittelstandsforschung Bonn, IfM (2007a). Ergebnisse der Online-Mittelstandsbefragung Frühjahr 2007 (extended version). Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Institut für Mittelstandsforschung, IfM (2007b). Schlüsselzahlen des Mittelstands in Deutschland 2007,Bonn. http://www.ifm-bonn.org/index.php?id=99. Accessed 15 May 2009.

  • Jenkins, H. (2006). Small Business Champions for Corporate Social Responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 67(3), 241–256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klein, S. & Vorbohle, K. (2008). Eine andere Welt?! Über das Verhältnis von Inhabern kleiner und mittlerer Unternehmen zu ihren Mitarbeitern. Beschorner, T. et al. (Eds.), Zur Verantwortung von Unternehmen und Konsumenten (pp. 41–56). München/Mehring: Rainer Hampp Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kropp, P. & Niebuhr, A. (2006). Vergleichende Analyse von Länderarbeitsmärkten. Hamburg und die Metropolregion. IAB regional (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt und Berufsforschung), No. 1/2006.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morsing, M. & Perrini, F. (2009). CSR in SMEs: do SMEs matter for the CSR agenda?. Business Ethics: A European Review, 18(1), 1–6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nielsen, A.E. & Thomsen, C. (2009). Investigating CSR communication in SMEs: a case study among Danish middle managers. Business Ethics: A European Review, 18(1), 83–93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murillo, D. & Lozano, D.M. (2006). SMEs and CSR: An Approach to CSR in their Own Words. Journal of Business Ethics, 67(3), 227–240.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • RESPONSE (2006). Understanding and Responding to Societal Demands on Corporate Responsibility. http://www.insead.edu/v1/ibis/response_project/results.htm. Accessed 1 November 2008.

  • Roberts, S., Lawson, R., Nicholls, J. (2006). Generating Regional-Scale improvements in SME Corporate Responsibility Performance: Lessons from Responsibility Northwest.Journal of Business Ethics, 67(3), 275–286.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rowley, T.J. (1997). Moving beyond Dyadic Ties: A Network Theory of Stakeholder Influences. The Academy of Management Review, 22(4), 887–910.

    Google Scholar 

  • Siegel, D. & Vitaliano, D.F. (2006). An Empirical Analysis of the Strategic Use of Corporate Social Responsibility. http://ssrn.com/abstract=900521. Accessed 1 November 2008.

  • sneep (2007). Corporate Social Responsibility bei kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen in der Metropolregion Hamburg. http://www.sneep.info. Accessed 1 January 2009.

  • Spence, L.J. (1999) Does size matter? The state of art in small business ethics. In: Business Ethics: A European Review, 8(3), 163–174.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spence, L.J. & Lozano, J.F. (2000). Communicating about ethics with small firms: Experiences from the UK and Spain. Journal of Business Ethics, 27(1), 43–53.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spence, L.J. (2007). CSR and Small Business in a European Policy Context: The Five “C”s of CSR and Small Business Research Agenda 2007. Business and Society Review, 112(4), 533–552.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spence, L.J., Schmidpeter, R., Habisch, A.(2003). Assessing social capital: Small and medium sized enterprises in the UK and Germany. Journal of Business Ethics, 47(1), 17–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tilley, F. (2000). Small firm environmental ethics: how deep do they go?. Business Ethics: A European Review, 9(1),31–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Westebbe, A. & Logan, D. (1995). Corporate Citizenship: Unternehmen im gesellschaftlichen Dialog. Wiesbaden: Gabler.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Eichstätt, Germany

    Simone Klein

  2. Ingolstadt School of Management, Auf der Schanz 49, 85049, Ingolstadt, Germany

    Simone Klein

  3. Institut für werteorientierte Unternehmensführung (Institute for value oriented Management), Gürtelstraße 29A/30, 10247, Berlin, Germany

    Kristin Vorbohle

  4. CSR NEWS GmbH, Unterscheideweg 13, 42499, Hückeswagen, Germany

    Kristin Vorbohle

Authors
  1. Simone Klein
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Kristin Vorbohle
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Simone Klein .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of London, School of Management, Royal Holloway, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, United Kingdom

    Laura Spence

  2. Dept. Philosophy, DePaul University, N. Clifton Ave. 2352, Chicago, 60614, Illinois, USA

    Mollie Painter-Morland

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Klein, S., Vorbohle, K. (2010). Corporate Social Responsibility and Stakeholder Relations – The Perspective of German Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. In: Spence, L., Painter-Morland, M. (eds) Ethics in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises. The International Society of Business, Economics, and Ethics Book Series, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9331-8_12

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation