CSR IN SMEs– SOME TERMINOLOGICAL DISTINCTIONS

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) was traditionally considered a prerogative of large companies. In recent years, in practice and in the literature, specific activities of CSR have also been implemented in SMEs. Unfortunately (both in practical and theoretical dimensions), things are far from being clarified. More precisely, it seems that there is a gap between theory and practice, a transplantation of theory in practice not accurate enough. In the present paper, we intend to do some conceptual delimitations regarding the corporate social responsibility approached in small and medium enterprises. More specifically, we raise the question: to what extent can the CSR term be used to define actions at an SME level? Our opinion, that we will try to argue using a relevant literature in this domain, is that the term is not quite adequate and has to be better defined. Therefore, there may be better solutions to avoid confusion and to overcome some reluctance at a pragmatic level.