The motivation of the research is to contribute to the exploration of the CSR activities of Romanian companies, especially for SMEs, through explanatory and descriptive research, to enrich the managers` knowledge of CSR, how to act more effectively in this field. The results of the research can contribute to establishing a model that can help managers of SMEs who have not defined and applied CSR tools. However, it can also serve as a basis for companies that already have a social responsibility in their activities. For the empirical analysis of the CSR activities of small and medium-sized enterprises, I used quantitative research tools in the framework of primary research. This method has proved to be a good way to get to know the thinking, opinion process and attitude of respondents. From a list of over 500 companies, 75 companies have been surveyed.
The research is based on three main pillars. In the first part, I examined the corporate characteristics and the demographic characteristics of the company managers. In the second part, the respondents can read statements about company, from these statements on social responsibility should select those that best characterize their business. In the third part, I was interested in the value system of company managers; here the manager of the company has to evaluate the statements of the responsible company, even if they do not apply to their company. In addition, I used qualitative research tools in which I interviewed 10 company managers. Qualitative researches are rarer on this subject, but it is necessary because it can reveal social relationships that are difficult to identify through quantitative tools. The companies involved in the research represent different industries: four production companies, one trade, two agriculture and 3 service companies.
During the analysis of the quantitative research results, I found that many managers of the 5- point Likert scale in many cases chose field 3, which is not a positive evaluation or a negative one. Therefore, after conducting and evaluating quantitative research, I wanted to know what is the reason why in many cases managers do not take position on certain issues. Quantitative research on this subject is also looking for a “what” answer, but in order to get a full picture of CSR activities of companies, we need to understand “how” and “why” through qualitative research. The results show that the manager`s affinity for CSR is not enough, and there is a need for a financial framework to finance it. On the other hand, for many, the theoretical framework is not known, it does not always mean that the activity is not practiced.
In the case of SMEs, their responsibility for society is in not cases related to their activity, and the neutral response is also due to the fact that they are unable to state what is not known to them or what they are not doing.