Family Business and Corporate Social Responsibility in a Sample of Dutch Firms

This paper explores corporate social responsibility in family businesses. In particular, the research investigates family businesses in relation to a wide variety of constituent or stakeholder groups. It reports the preliminary results of focused interviews with 42 small and medium-sized Dutch family businesses. The data obtained from content analysis suggest that a mix of corporate social responsibility perspectives, help to explain the nature of relationships with, and behaviors toward, various constituency groups. The family character of the business most frequently impacts employee, client, and supplier relationships. Statistically significant interaction effects are reported for the following moderator variables: Generation of the owner; company tenure in the community; community size; company size; and inclusion of the family surname in the business name. Interaction effects were also tested for industry type and gender. The paper also outlines some practical implications of the findings and suggests directions for future research. © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited