Buelens, Marc

Fassin, Yves

Van Rossem, Annick

English

Recent academic articles point to an increased vagueness and overlapping of the concepts around 
business ethics and corporate responsibility. However, the perception of these notions in the 
entrepreneurial world can differ from the original academic definitions. This paper focuses on 
entrepreneurial cognition, a research stream which is increasingly being recognized as a 
perspective for understanding entrepreneurship related phenomena. Given the impact of the 
entrepreneur as owner of his venture, corporate responsibility and ethical issues can take a 
different breadth in SMEs. The entrepreneur has the possibility to shape the corporate culture and 
to enact values other than profit. 
This paper centers its attention on the cognitive study of a specific topic of management and 
entrepreneurship: the process of how CSR and business ethics related concepts are perceived or 
interpreted. For this research, the Repertory Grid Technique (RGT) is used, a method with 
limited applications in the business and society field. 
Our findings partially reject the confusion in terminology noticed in the academic literature. 
Entrepreneurs, pragmatically and rather clearly differentiate the various corporate responsibility 
and business ethics related concepts. These findings add to a better understanding of how 
entrepreneurs think and integrate corporate responsibility and ethical issues into their decision-making

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A small business leader's perception of corporate responsibility and business ethical concepts

https://repository.vlerick.com/bitstream/20.500.12127/2695/1/Fassin_Y_WP_SmallBusinessLeadersPerceptionofCorporateResponsibilityandBusinessEthicalConcepts.pdf

A small business leader's perception of corporate responsibility and business ethical concepts

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