Being Good for Goodness Sake: The Influence of Family Involvement on Motivations to Engage in Small Business Social Responsibility
Abstract
Small family and nonfamily firms are acknowledged to serve as important facilitators of social responsibility within their communities; however, both have received relatively little attention in the literature for these efforts or their motivation for undertaking them. Grounded in Enlightened Self-Interest (ESI) and intentions, we explore motivations for participation in socially responsible behaviors and the moderating effect of family involvement. We develop measures for small business social responsibility (SBSR), ESI, and SBSR intentions. Our analyses indicate positive direct effects exist for both SBSR intentions and ESI on engagement in SBSR. We find that family involvement strengthens the relationship between ESI and participation in civic SBSR, thus suggesting that family firms may be partially motivated to "do good" in visible forms of SBSR to protect their own interests.
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