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Does size matter? The state of the art in small business ethics
Abstract
In this paper the exclusive focus on large firms in the field of business ethics is challenged. Some of the idiosyncrasies of small firms are explained, and links are made between these and potential ethical issues. A review of the existing literature on ethics in small firms demonstrates the lack of appropriate research, so that to date we can draw no firm conclusions in relation to ethics in the small firm. Recommendations are made as to the way forward for small firm business ethics research. Questions for investigation are suggested using micro, meso and macro perspectives. Much exploratory work needs to be done to lay the groundwork for this important area of social and commercial research in the future.
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Citations
Cited by
Investigating the Impact of Firm Size on Small Business Social Responsibility: A Critical Review
Lepoutre, J., & Heene, A. (2006) · Journal of Business Ethics · doi:10.1007/s10551-006-9183-5 · Cited by 893
SMEs and CSR: An Approach to CSR in their Own Words
Murillo, D., & Lozano, J. M. (2006) · Journal of Business Ethics · doi:10.1007/s10551-006-9181-7 · Cited by 729
CSR Strategies of SMEs and Large Firms. Evidence from Italy
Perrini, F., Russo, A., & Tencati, A. (2007) · Journal of Business Ethics · doi:10.1007/s10551-006-9235-x · Cited by 624
Amaeshi, K. M., Osuji, O. K., & Nnodim, P. (2008) · Journal of Business Ethics · doi:10.1007/s10551-007-9490-5 · Cited by 389
Williams, S., & Schaefer, A. (2013) · Business Strategy and the Environment · doi:10.1002/bse.1740 · Cited by 377
Metadata
- Authors
- Spence, L. J.
- Venue
- Business Ethics: A European Review
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 1999-07
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 163-174
- ISSN
- 0962-8770 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-8608
- OpenAlex
- W1972481967
- Cited by
- 499
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 8.90
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- Spence, L. J. (1999). Does size matter? The state of the art in small business ethics. Business Ethics: A European Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8608.00144
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
