دانلود رایگان مقاله تاثیر استراتژی های رقابتی شرکت های کوچک بر روی مشارکت اجتماعی و محیطی آنها

abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature holds that CSR can help firms gain a competitive advantage by enabling them to differentiate themselves from their competition and reduce costs. In the strategy literature, differentiation and cost reduction are recognized as two major competitive strategies that firms pursue to outcompete rival firms. Yet, how CSR is linked to a firm's choice of competitive strategy is not explicitly explored in the extant literature. The present paper fills this gap. Using data collected from 478 small firms representing multiple industries in the US, this paper finds that a firm's focus on competing through differentiation strategy is associated with its level of community engagement but not with its level of environmental engagement. Competing through a strategy of costleadership is associated with neither community nor environmental engagement. The paper concludes that, except for seeking differentiation through community engagement, the approach of small firms to CSR remains largely characterized by adhoc decisions with few ties to their competitive strategies. The paper advances the understanding of CSR in small firms and provides novel insights into how CSR is linked with competitive strategies.

6. Conclusion

This paper set out to examine whether small firms' CSR engagement was associated with their strategic choice. Drawing on a sample of 478 small manufacturing firms, limited evidence was found for this relation. The results of this study therefore suggest that small firms behave idiosyncratically in terms of their CSR activities when compared to large firms. The only exception to the overall weak tie between strategic pursuits and CSR was the significant relationship between a differentiation focus and community initiatives. Although these results generally align with previous research that a small firm approach to CSR is largely characterized by ad-hoc decisions with no ties to their competitive strategy, the results of this study do suggest a finer view of the relationship. That is, small firms' community initiatives might have the strategic role of differentiating themselves from their competitors in their local context. Our findings are distinct from previous literature which generally assumes that small firms engage with local communities due to relational motivations. To contrast the previous literature, we find that there is a business case underlying community engagement which may also explain why a large number of small firms emphasize community engagement. Similarly, the extant literature stresses that environmental engagement helps firms in cost reduction but this study finds that it may not be true for small firms as cost-leadership focused small firms do not emphasize environmental engagement. Future studies may build upon this work and ameliorate its shortcomings by including in the same sample both small and large firms, which would allow a more definitive verdict about ways in which the strategyeCSR link is different between small and large firms. This study only considered community and environmental domains, but future studies could, for example, consider employee and customer domains.