**1. Introduction**

This paper is based on the qualitative data generated by telephone interviews with senior CSR managers of UK-based global companies. The interviews were prompted by a business seminar around the theme of what corporate social responsibility (CSR) meant for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). Interviews were arranged using the online LinkedIn platform to ask managers about their current views on CSR and business practices related to this. We specifically wanted to explore how larger businesses were engaging SMEs within their supply chains on CSR. We were interested in, first, what senior managers in global companies are doing to achieve their CSR and related ethical and sustainability goals and, second, what SMEs might learn from this practice for their own engagement with issues of responsibility, ethics, and sustainability and other more general organizational concerns such as stakeholder relations, governance, accountability, and reporting.

During the interviews, it became apparent that senior managers in large global businesses are moving away from the language of CSR to embrace what they describe as the broader concept of sustainability. Global businesses use practices such as scientific targets, supply chain mapping, procurement, responsibility for products beyond the factory gate, and engagement with the Circular Economy and other multi-stakeholder initiatives in their efforts to apply the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to business practice. In addition, the data collected from these interviews also suggested a change in approach for global business in that, rather than cost savings being the main justification for CSR,

**Citation:** Williams, S.; Murphy, D.F. Learning from Each Other: UK Global Businesses, SMEs, CSR and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). *Sustainability* **2023**, *15*, 4151. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15054151

Academic Editors: Roberta Costa, Akrum Helfaya and Ahmed Aboud

Received: 9 December 2022 Revised: 9 February 2023 Accepted: 20 February 2023 Published: 24 February 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

interviewees talked, instead, of innovation and where CSR can add product or service value and competitive advantage. Such a shift in focus could drive significant innovation within organizations, such as the need for different skill sets for future sustainability managers, or that conversations about CSR, ethics, and sustainability should include an extended group of internal stakeholders such as accountants, facilities, operations, and the human resources management (HRM) function.

This article is structured in the following way. First, the literature review explores the changing concept of CSR—potentially influenced by frameworks such as the SDGs, ISO 26000 [1], the UN Global Compact, and the growing emphasis of Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) investment criteria—and how this might reflect changes in social and technological understanding. In this discussion, the importance of individual values and sensemaking are highlighted. Second, the methodology section explains the decision to use telephone interviews as the main method of data collection along with the analytical approach. Third, the findings section provides an outline of respondents' comments regarding their assumptions about CSR and how their reframing of the concept as sustainability has affected practice. This section also considers the role of global business advice to SMEs regarding CSR engagement. Fourth, the discussion section concludes that if the construction of CSR is decided within the individual business, then the sensemaking of those individuals with a responsibility for directing the business response to CSR and sustainability is an important factor in understanding how these concepts are delivered in practice.

#### **2. Literature Review**

We begin by exploring the most recent ideas regarding what CSR is and how it is made sense of and enacted within business alongside related concepts such as business ethics and corporate sustainability. Our literature review also considers tools for CSR implementation and delivery including the use of ISO 26000 and other practical frameworks for analyzing CSR and sustainability in business. Given the growing importance of the SDGs for business and its stakeholders in relation to CSR, we include a succinct review of the literature on sustainable development, business, and the SDGs, noting how the SDGs have given renewed impetus for sustainable development in business, academic, and practitioner circles. As part of this process, there is an emerging academic literature on the relevance and application of the SDGs in business contexts [2–6]. Research on the perception of the SDGs in relation to CSR appears to be more limited to date [7,8]. Recent debates on CSR and environmental sustainability and their possible impacts for business have shifted to the role of individual actors [9]. The organizational level of analysis may be where CSR is expressed, however, it is individual business actors who are responsible for developing strategy, decision-making, and delivering CSR initiatives [10]. With this in mind, and with the objective of foregrounding individual managers' understanding of CSR and the influence this has on business practice, the literature around sensemaking and values [11,12] will also be discussed.
