How the Pandemic Has Impacted CSR and Employee Volunteerism in the SME Sector

Abstract

Social and economic sustainability has become a crucial issue in the corporate sector over recent decades, both in large and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME). The shock caused by the global pandemic has prompted SME players to rethink their operations. It has motivated them to develop sustainable processes to ensure their long-term economic and competitive presence in the market. The aim of this article is to provide a literature review of operational areas that can be examined and developed from the scope of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which is a concept relating to understanding a business being part of society. Another scope underlined is employee volunteerism as an essential part of CSR activities. However, restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic have rewritten enterprises’ willingness to help and ways of providing such help. This paper provides a preliminary study of how employee volunteerism might work in the extraordinary COVID-19 situation. This study is a review article, which has been written to bring together and summarise the results/conclusions from multiple original research articles/studies. The authors of this study aim to provide practitioners with an overview to help them adapt to today’s rapidly changing environment.