CSR and women-led high-growth SMEs: a prudent articulation between discourse and practice
Résumé
Women business owners of high-growth SMEs apply CSR in all its forms, even if they make little or no mention of it on their websites. In interviews, they revealed that they seek to make sense of the wide diversity of approaches to CSR, while at the same time applying a prudent attitude to their articulation, spending a relatively long period observing and testing them. They attempt to develop a consensus in regard to their decisions and take the views of other people into account (Paradas et al. 2013). In harbouring doubts about their actions, they convey a relative lack of legitimacy. At the same time, they intentionally adopt a patient and prudent approach of CRS implementation, designed to avoid falling into the traps of gendered CSR, which sees women entrepreneurs as more likely than their male counterparts to be concerned with “care” (Saint-Pierre et al., 2011).