Managing Small Business Social Responsibility (SBSR) in Formalised Network Using a Euclidean Perspective

This chapter deepens the knowledge of inter-firm collaborations to address sustainability issues between SMEs in adopting Small Business Social Responsibility (SBSR) approaches. Our study investigates the role of Formal Network Contracts (FNCs), where aspects of SBSR are formalized into legal agreements between the networkers. For this purpose, we identify three management implications declined as sub-variables: control, consensus and consistency. Institutional theory, and specifically, isomorphism and normative theory of CSR are used as lenses through which analyse our results. The methodology applied is a deductive qualitative content analysis, while results are shown using a Euclidean perspective. The study discovers the use of FNCs to clearly govern consistency and consensus, more than to control and audit sustainability herein the network. In addition, it demonstrates a relation between network size and use of the tool.