Unpacking the corporate social responsibility–human resource management nexus in SMEs : a multilevel institutional perspective

Shin, Hyemi (author), Golob, Urša (author), Podnar, Klement (author), Kohont, Andrej (author)

This study examines how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) integrate corporate social responsibility (CSR) and human resource management (HRM) in a Confucian context. We conceptualize the CSR–HRM nexus as an institutionally embedded translation mechanism shaped by community and family logics. Drawing on qualitative data from Korean SMEs, we develop a three-level framework—macro-level societal logics, meso-level CSR–HRM arrangements, and micro-level managerial discretion—to show how institutional logics are materialized and enacted in employment relations. We contribute by showing how institutional logics structure CSR–HRM integration, how CSR and HRM co-evolve through embedded value systems, and how family logic can extend beyond family ownership. We further show how family logic is expressed through paternalistic employment relations in which care and managerial discretion coexist, creating a largely aligned CSR–HRM configuration while leaving latent power asymmetries. This specifies a boundary condition for more conflict-oriented accounts of multiple logics and CSR–HRM.

• Language: English
• Keywords: CSR–HRM nexus, institutional logics, non-family business, SMEs paternalism
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: 18 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 29
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-190025
• UDC: 005.35:334.012.61-022.51/.55
• ISSN on article: 2340-9444
• DOI: 10.1177/23409444261493135
• COBISS.SI-ID: 301727491
• Publication date in RUL: 20.10.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Business research quarterly
• Shortened title: Bus. res. q.
• Publisher: SAGE
• ISSN: 2340-9444
• COBISS.SI-ID: 51910915

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: družbena odgovornost podjetij, upravljanje s človeškimi viri, mala in srednja podjetja

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Project number: 734824
• Name: Global Entrepreneurial Talent Management 3
• Acronym: GETM3

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P5-0193
• Name: Analiza dela, izobraževanja in zaposlovanja