Proceedings of World Business and Social Science Research Conference
25-25 October, 2013, Novotel Bangkok on Siam Square, Bangkok, Thailand, ISBN: 978-1-922069-33-7
Corporate Social Responsibility: Small and Medium
Sized Accountancy Firms in Malaysia
Sujana Adapa
The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been
investigated to a greater depth within the context of large and
multinational corporations. However, within the Small and Medium
sized Enterprises (SMEs) the concept of CSR is under investigated
and calls for a comprehensive understanding of its meaning.
Therefore this exploratory research sets out to gather meaningful
responses from 17 owner-managers of the small and medium
sized accountancy firms in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia through
qualitative in-depth interviews. Results obtained indicate that the
concept of CSR is understood by the small and medium sized
accountancy owner-managers only at the discretion of their own
values and trust-based relationships that they maintain with their
stakeholders. Similarly these SMEs owner managers identified
employees, clients, other businesses and community as the
important stakeholders. Furthermore, the responses obtained from
the SME owner managers indicate that the CSR communication
practices differ to a greater extent between the internal and
external stakeholders identified by the respondents. Although this
research aimed to explore the similarities and differences between
small and medium sized firms, results obtained indicated that
considerable variations occur amongst family owned businesses,
micro firms, small firms and medium sized firms on the basis of the
type of CSR-based activities.
Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Small and Medium Sized
Enterprises (SMEs), Accountancy Firms, Communication, Stakeholders
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Dr. Sujana Adapa, UNE Business School, University of New England, Armidale 2351 NSW,
Australia, Email: sadapa2@une.edu.au