The aim of this paper is to report on an exploratory, qualitative study of how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) describe their firm's relationships with or impact on stakeholders when communicating corporate social responsibility (CSR) on their websites. Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative content analysis was conducted on 22 Australian SME websites from the information media and telecommunications sector. Stakeholder theory was used as the basis for analysis. Findings: An important aspect of CSR communication is reporting the firm's relationships with stakeholders such as society/communities, ecological environment, employees, customers and suppliers. This paper provides insights into how these relationships are manifested in SME website communications. For example, three-way relationships between the firm and stakeholders were described on some websites, but few explained the impact of their CSR on stakeholders. Originality/value: There has been little research on how SMEs use channels such as websites to communicate CSR. This paper addresses this gap in knowledge by providing insights into how SMEs describe stakeholder relationships in CSR website communications. Practical implications: The findings offer SME owner-managers ideas on different ways they can incorporate details of stakeholder relationships in CSR website communications. Research limitations/implications: This study concentrated on identifying the CSR communication on websites from one industry sector in Australia. These limitations provide the basis for future research to explore and compare CSR communication on websites by SMEs from other industry sectors and countries.
There have been calls in the IS/eBusiness literature for research on "green" IS/IT in a Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) context. The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) literature has neglected the issue of how SMEs can use websites to communicate their environmental improvement activities. This paper links these two previously separate disciplines by reporting on a content analysis of 443 Australian SME websites from four industry sectors to identify if and how they use websites to communicate their environmental improvement activities. The study found that 47 websites were communicating such activities in some form. A detailed analysis was undertaken of these 47 websites to identify emergent themes relating to how these SMEs were communicating their environmental improvement activities. These themes resulted in a reconceptualisation of the traditional "4 Ps" of marketing for online communication of environmental improvement activities by SMEs: profile; product; process; and prominence.
This chapter contributes to green ICT/IS research by presenting a content analysis method for analysing the environmental sustainability descriptions on small and medium enterprise (SME) websites. Past research focuses on large firms, and few past studies have explored how firms of any size describe sustainability online. The chapter presents the method’s four steps: 1) identifying sources of SME websites; 2) determining if websites describe sustainability; 3) archiving the website content for later analysis; and 4) coding the website content using a structured coding framework developed by combining the literature on IS and sustainability. The authors anticipate the method will be useful to researchers and practitioners. The chapter gives examples of these uses such as qualitative and quantitative research objectives and practical outcomes (e.g. SME website design guidelines for incorporating sustainability content) which could result from applying the method.
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