Responsabilidade social corporativa em empresas de pequeno e médio porte : fatores que influenciam a adoção de iniciativas de sustentabilidade

Abstract

Sustainable development seeks to satisfy the current generation’s needs, without compromising their capacity to satisfy their own needs. That implies a major role for the organizations in order to achieve a harmonization between social and economic developments and environmental preservation. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a subject that has been acquiring importance in business enterprise strategies. However, there is a restrict number of researches about CSR in small and medium companies. In that sense, this particular research had as, its objective, analyze the adoption of sustainability initiatives in small and medium-sized companies. In order to achieve that goal, the research was based in a theoretical framework that allowed a bigger immersion on themes related to Corporate Social Responsibility, small and medium enterprises and factors that influence sustainability initiatives. The methodology used was multiple case study on the leather-footwear sector of the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre. One of the contributions brought by this study was the structuration of factors that influence the adoption of sustainability initiatives on internal and external, their grouping in facilitators or inhibitors, besides a referential board that illustrates the relevance of factors found for the incorporation of sustainability initiatives on small and medium-sized companies.The results point that the characteristics of organizations, alone, didn’t have relations with sustainability initiatives, but those companies that possess characteristics that lead to a greater market visibility, may be more sensitive to external factors, despite that not being confirmed by this exploratory study. Legislation is a determining factor for sustainability initiatives, in spite of resulting in minimal action when identified as the only factor for sustainability initiatives. Internal factors show themselves very relevant, highlighting the entrepreneur’s vision. It was identified a possible connection between the existence in women in management and the entrepreneur’s vision for sustainability initiatives, it became clear that government incentive as an important mechanism of encouragement for sustainability initiatives.