Corporate social responsibility as a chance for sustainable social-economic development of small and medium enterprises in Poland and Latvia

Abstract

In scientific literature, one can come across different approaches to the idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR). It is mainly due to the fact that individual dimensions of this phenomenon are very broad. Most studies of CSR focus on larger organizations, thus there are only few studies focusing on small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Therefore, there is a need to adapt the principles and instruments of corporate social responsibility to the specificity of the sector of small and medium enterprises, which is of great importance for the development of economies all over the world. The main goal of this paper is to describe the meaning of actions within CSR in the SME sector, both in Poland and in Latvia, taking into account the possibility of carrying them out and barriers in implementing them. The tasks of the research: 1) to explore the main areas of CSR which relate to SMEs and sustainable socioeconomics development; 2) to observe and analyse CSR main areas for SMEs in Poland and Latvia; 3) to make conclusions about CSR importance for SMEs in sustainable development.