Small business social responsibility: the CSR4UTOOL web application

Context – Small and Medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) positively represent the backbone of the European economic system and, negatively, they make a significant contribution to environmental pollution and social impacts. Purpose - The purpose of this research is to discuss how a new tool for supporting the adoption of Small Business Social Responsibility (SBSR) can be tailored in order to be more effective. Theoretical framework – A literature analysis of how SMEs address sustainability issues will be discussed, especially the need for SME tools with the following features: quality, materiality, free of charge, anonymous, easy-to-use and easy to understand. This need has been confirmed by the literature of SBSR and also social accounting doctrine. Methodology – This paper analyses CSR4UTOOL, an applied research project of a web-based application dedicated to SMEs in order to provide a self-assessment on sustainability performances. Findings – A web based tool co-designed and co-created with SMEs reveals the importance of new tools to support SBSR, especially for the global process of CSR downstreaming using a bottom-up perspective. Practical implications/Originality - CSR4UTOOL is based on a decision-tree structure presenting several questions and indicators given by a profound benchmark of the most internationally well-known accountability standards. It translates accounting and non-accounting data as well as qualitative and quantitative data to a powerful source of information for entrepreneurs regarding their ethical and moral managerial conduct. A report on the performance of the company will be generated at the end of each session.