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This article focuses on the association between the beliefs of small business owners and managers and their support for the community. Qualitative and quantitative data are utilized in an exploratory examination of two rationales for socially responsible behavior and of two kinds of support. Analyses show that the belief in strengthening the community as an important strategy for business success is positively associated with the provision of nonrisky and risky support. Risky support may threaten short-term business success. However, the belief that a good public image is important for business success is negatively or not significantly associated with either risky or nonrisky support for the community. Findings uphold the position that there are significant variations in enlightened self-interest rationales that are differentially associated with business social performance among small business operators and demonstrate the usefulness of disaggregating social performance into risky and nonrisky variations.
Keywords: small businesses; community involvement; enlightened self-interest; social responsibility; business-community relations
It is common practice for communities to actively promote and support business development. Communities provide infrastructure, buildings, job training, grants, tax holidays, and loans to help recruit businesses and to assist businesses in development and growth. Undergirding these efforts is the belief in the shared destiny of businesses and communities that can be stated thus: When businesses prosper, the quality of life in the community will be better. If there is a shared destiny between businesses and communities, then the inverse of the belief statement should also be true. That is, a high quality of life in a community will result in more prosperous businesses. Stated this way, the relationship between business and community welfare is cast in a slightly different light from the original statement and provides a logical basis for the enlightened self-interest (ESI) rationale (Aram, 1989; Davis & Blomstrom, 1971; Keim, 1978) for corporate social responsibility. It suggests the possibility of socially responsible behavior motivated by the belief that, in the long run, businesses will thrive if the community is healthy. This is contrasted with another variant of the ESI rationale that focuses on the public relations value of corporate good works.
The purpose of this article is to elaborate these two versions of the ESI rationale. The elaboration consists of two parts. The first part...