Corporate Social Responsibility in Small and Medium Sized Accountancy Firms

Abstract

The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been well researched in the domain of large organisations and has gained greater momentum over the past two decades. While there is an existing rhetoric that Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) do not engage in any sort of CSR-based activities, to this point, there has been a limited research directed to gathering evidence on the extent of the application of CSR practices in SMEs. This report presents the findings from 31 qualitative in-depth interviews from accountancy practices in Armidale, Tamworth, Guyra and Uralla as a means to build our understanding of CSR in SMEs. Results obtained indicate that substantial differences exist between small and medium sized accountancy firms in terms of nature of the relationships maintained with various stakeholders and types of CSR-based activities pursued.