The Role of Owner-Managers in Shaping CSR Activity of Romanian SMEs

Background: While corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a field of study that has gained popularity in the last years, the approaches of small and medium enterprises’ (SME) contributions to social responsibility are under debate. Moreover, studies on Romanian CSR demonstrate the incremental development of such practices, while the social responsibility of Romanian small business is an understudied topic. In this paper we present data regarding the role of owner-managers in shaping the CSR actions of their SMEs in Romania, along with their opinions on what social responsibility is. Methods: We analyze two sources of data: quantitative research, based on 109 questionnaires collected from SMEs in the western part of Romania, and also a qualitative study, based on 17 interviews with owner-managers of small businesses. The quantitative data presents the reality of social responsibility actions and the relationship with manager’s attitudes, while the qualitative focuses on a better understanding of owner-managers opinions on social responsibility. Results: Our data confirms the high impact of owner-managers’ values and orientations in shaping the degree and forms of the CSR of their firms, and reveals definitions of CSR given by practitioners. Conclusions: Our data reveals that the way managers’ see the role of business in providing social welfare influences their decisions to participate in different types of CSR actions. Through interviews we show that managers, whether their firm has formal CSR actions or not, consider being fair and doing business at their best as part of CSR. Those that also displayed other forms of CSR are those who considered it their duty to give back to the community. The interest of stakeholders was displayed mostly by those who have incremental interest in CSR.