ABSTRACT
The analysis of the motives for small business participation in institutionalised forms of CSR at the international level is based on some definitorial fuzziness, as this chapter will show. In particular, the definition of what SME encompasses and how the concept of CSR is applied have been the cause of discrepancies in academic literature. The SME sector is largely a grey area of research. A popular assumption about smaller businesses is that they are homogeneous in character, mainly thanks to their smaller size in comparison to larger corporations. Quantitative aspects concentrate to a large degree on employment numbers and general turnover. Although other criteria such as production method, market position, fixed assets or balance sheet total are also helpful for a quantitative SME definition, most official statistics often fail to provide the necessary data to be applicable. A large amount of literature has been published on CSR over the past 40 years.
