Corporate social responsibility practices impact on company performance across Bulgarian SMEs in the automotive sector

Abstract

The paper tries to explain the relationship between CSR practices and the firm performance across automotive SMEs in Bulgaria. The paper suggests that development and implementation of CSR measures is critical for the success of the SMEs across the emerging automotive sector in this EU country. The study aims at broadening knowledge at Corporate Social Responsibility literature in the context of SMEs business domain. The study represents quantitative analysis on CSR measures based on the ESG goals set by the United Nations. The collected data in the paper are secondary and it has been collected from the Bulgarian Statistical Institute, the Union of the Automobile Industry in Bulgaria and individual companies’ websites. Additional data have been gathered from the Automotive SMEs’ annual reports of the companies as well. The paper empirical data findings for the period 2018-2020 show that Automotive SMEs have been adopting westernized best practices on CSR, which positively affect their performance and prosperity.