*4.6. Assumptions about SMEs*

The original purpose of these telephone interviews on which this paper is based was to understand more about what larger companies meant by CSR so that managers in SMEs could learn from that for their own practices. The ideas and assumptions that interviewees expressed about SMEs suggest that there is work to be done to achieve greater collaboration and for sustainability within the supply chain to be delivered.

Assumptions about SMEs varied more than any other aspect of the interviews. Some respondents saw SMEs as diverse and difficult to engage with, whilst others saw that SMEs were agile and had great potential to help larger companies deliver CSR. Other respondents focused on the perceived difficulty for SMEs to engage with sustainability and changing agendas, either due to cost or complexity of ideas. Other interviewees put forward that SMEs were often already doing CSR but didn't recognize it as such, largely because they were so embedded in their local communities. There also sometimes seemed to be an assumption that SME equated to family-run businesses.

What all interviewees did seem to agree with was that CSR was the responsibility of all types of businesses and that a 'level playing field' (R3) was needed for SMEs to engage. This meant that there was a need for SMEs to be able to access affordable support and for government and support organizations at different social and political levels to have the funds to engage SMEs with compliance and to 'work out what is needed' (R5). R10 suggested that the main issue for SMEs was that CSR could be dismissed as an abstract term that was only about corporate business and so, was not relevant to them. The challenge, therefore, was to help SMEs understand what CSR meant to them, how it matters to their customers, and how what they are doing already links with the 'jargon' (R9) used more widely in the business world. One respondent suggested that the title for the upcoming GBN seminar for SMEs should be 'what is CSR and what the hell does it have to do with me?—from the assumption that it means nothing' (R3).
