An innovative model to promote CSR among SMEs operating in industrial clusters: evidence from an EU project

In a context of change and globalization, businesses are increasingly asked to pursue their mission paying attention to the needs of the stakeholders whose well-being depends on the way enterprises manage their core activities. According to this new claims, many large corporations are increasingly considering these topics in their agenda, enhancing CSR as a business strategy and philosophy. On the opposite, the findings of literature and previous research confirm that SMEs are still lagging behind because of the cost of CSR implementation (in terms of management time and needs for information and know how) which represents for them a strong barrier owing, for example, to their lack of human technical and economic resources. This article proposes a way to overcome the above mentioned barriers to the adoption of CSR by implementing a network-based approach involving SMEs operating in clusters (i.e.: local productive systems). The effectiveness and the viability of this methodology will be justified in the paper from a theoretical point of view but also by relying on the experience of a recent research project aiming at promoting sustainability practices in SMEs operating in clusters.