An Empirical Study of Corporate Social responsibility (CSR) in Chinese Textile SMEs: Using Shengzhou Textile SMEs as an Example

In recent years, Chinese textile industry has been developed especially rapidly in its exports. However, since the beginning of global financial crisis in 2008, Chinese textile industry, especially SMEs, faced both the quota pressure from Europe and the United States and the challenge of global CSR movement. This paper studies the CSR in Shengzhou (Zhejiang province, China) Textile SMEs. Through questionnaires and in-depth interviews, this paper points out that many internal and external problems still occurs in SMEs, such as the incomplete implementation of CSR standard, inadequate protection of employees benefits, great CSR pressure from outside, and indifference to environmental protection. Based on the analysis of the causes, this paper suggests countermeasures and proposals to the government, society, and SMEs themselves. This paper believes that the CSR improvement of the SMEs may obtain from the following aspects; to set a complete CSR monitoring and management system, including CSR standard, CSR standard-related laws and regulations and CSR management system; to strengthen SMEs'innovation ability; and to intensify SMEs'responsibilities to employees, society, and environment.