Decision-making and Managerial Behaviour Regarding Corporate Social Responsibility in the Case of Small and Middle-sized Companies

AbstractWhen discussing large companies, it is widely known that social responsibility became a form of self-regulation integrated in a business model. This paper presents the preliminary results of a study on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Romania. This research emphasizes the gap between CSR behaviour of large and small firms, and between theory and practice in the case of the SMEs under study. The manager's knowledge about CSR is surveyed. Also, the way managers make decisions regarding social issues is thoroughly analyzed. The study focuses mostly on decisions regarding the responsibility related to employees, more particularly on occupational illnesses and health conditions. The research analyses if the CSR concept is used as a marketing/PR tool, or whether it is simply an irregular philanthropic act without any integration to the business strategy or to the core business processes. The research presented in the paper is based on a survey realized in a region from the centre of Romania. The studied sample consists of 300 enterprises