Intrinsic CSR and Competition: Doing well amongst European SMEs - Hardcover

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Walter Wehrmeyer is Reader in Environmental Business Management at the Centre for Environment and Sustainability of the University of Surrey, UK. His 25 years of experience in teaching and research cover the organisation of sustainable development within private and public sector organisations, as well as the context in which managerial decisions towards sustainable development come about.

Stéphanie Looser is a postgraduate researcher in Environmental Strategy at the University of Surrey, UK, focusing on Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and their unconventional but sophisticated approach to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). She is evaluating these heuristic and/or ethics-driven business models for comparison with standard systems in order to hasten them towards policy.

Mara Del Baldo is Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management, Financial Accounting and the Economics of Sustainability at ‘Carlo Bo’ Universityof Urbino, Italy. She leads several initiatives aimed at raising awareness of CSR, sustainability, entrepreneurship and business ethics among students, business and institutions.

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This edited book is at the intersection between the discussion on family-owned business, the CSR agenda, and company competition in Europe. The authors contribute to the debates on corporate sustainable responsibility by arguing that formal management systems are not the one-size-fits-all solution they are typically presented to be. Exploring alternative interpretations of the profile environmental management activities have in SMEs, the book evaluates the way in which cultural and ethical values are embedded in European SMEs in order to drive and orientate CSR successfully without following the mainstream ‘systems’ approach. It addresses several values of thought within the CSR debate such as intrinsic CSR, the role of virtue ethics and moral theory in corporate culture, environmental sustainability and vision-driven CSR. Focusing on a European perspective, the book heuristically explores an alternative model for the integration of CSR, innovation dynamics and economic success driven by intrinsic values rather than extrinsic post-decision rationalisations.