Corporate Social Responsibility in Portuguese Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: CEO perspectives

• Autor(a) principal: Lima, Ana Rafaela Viegas de Medeiros de Azevedo
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/26661
• topic: Responsabilidade social das empresas -- Corporate social responsibility; PME Pequenas e Médias Empresas -- SME Small and Medium Enterprises; Practices; European market; Portuguese market; Práticas; Mercado europeu; Mercado português

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a global concern that has been increasingly adopted by corporations worldwide. Most research on CSR focuses on large enterprises, leaving a significant gap by reason of small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) role as the depictive in the European market, as well as in the Portuguese market. Given that the available data is mostly applied to large companies, on the one hand, we need to get to know more about SMEs. Moreover, little is known about the European reality, and the Portuguese in particular, being this another gap needed to be filled. In light of the relevance of SMEs in the Portuguese economy, and previously noted gaps, this study plays a part in motivating CSR in SMEs by identifying how the Portuguese organisations perceive and understand CSR, as well as uncovering the reasons why they do, or do not, part-taken in such practices. To reach this aim, the study of relevant literature on CSR in SMEs handed the necessary resources to, through the adoption of qualitative methodology, develop and conduct 8 interviews with CEOs of Portuguese SMEs in the Greater Lisbon area. The results concluded that SMEs in Portugal are aware of their role in society and actively engage in CSR practices. In turn, these practices are conditioned to the size of the company and, consequently, to its available resources. This implies that such companies focus their CSR practices on an internal context or an external context close to the company and directly affected by its actions.