1.

0 OVERVIEW

The chosen topic of the journal review is Corporate Social Responsibility as a

Determinant of Sustainability of Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This article written by
Motilewa Bolanle Deborah, Worlu Rowland E.K., Moses Chinonye Love and Adeniji
Chinyerem Grace from the Department of Business Management Covenant University, Nigeria.
This journal has used a case study of one SME in Nigeria.

House of Tara International, the leading beauty and make up company primarily in
Nigeria and other Western countries in Africa has been selected as the case study in this journal.
House of Tara is the best example of SMEs company that manage to thrive among international
brands such as MAC, Maybelline, Mary Kay, Dior and many others by using CSR as the
medium. The authors also implant both of arguments and supporting side to CSR’s activities
which parallel to corporate communication aspects.

2.0 ISSUES/PROBLEM

According to (Aras, 2008) CSR is a management concept whereby companies integrate

social and environmental concerns in their business operations and interactions with their
stakeholders. The authors realized that in pursuit the profit maximization, company must use a
method that would not forfeit their operations. They encourage SMEs which basically may lack
adequate of resources such as financial to implement CSR in their organization by included an
example of one SME firm which is House of Tara.

Thus, the primary issue in this study is to investigate the relationship between corporate
social responsibility and sustainability in small medium enterprises. Besides, the small and
medium enterprises operating in the country are usually side-lined by bigger multinational
corporations, as the SMEs in Nigeria are currently facing several challenges that hinder their
growth and development.

Based on this journal, the authors suggest that CSR must include the economic, legal,
ethical and discretionary expectancies of the society to produce goods and services that are
beneficial to the society at a profit. This discretionary responsibility is where managers either
engage in mere philanthropy or strategic CSR that is parallel with core business objectives. The
study continues with the two arguments against CSR which are (i) firms should maintain profit
maximization as their number one objective, and should participate in only activities that bring

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profit and (ii) lies in the negative political power a firm can gain from its involvement in social
good as in Nigeria, the people believe that government‘s job is not business, thus business‘ job
should not be government.

However, there are several arguments supporting the CSR in an organization which this
coincide with corporate communication function. One of its function to build identity, image
and reputation of organization. By doing CSR, the society‘s perception of the firm will turn
into a very large extent which affect the sustainability of the firm and strengthening the ties
with the local economic and social community. Next function is to foster a strong internal and
external communication. With CSR activities, it can help to achieve the firm‘s profit
maximization objective, through its ability to serve as a strategic tool for gaining competitive
advantage, as measured through the stakeholders perception of the organization, which is
reflected through loyalty from customers, employees, government and society.

3.0 CRITICAL ANALYSIS

As the method of research, the authors indicate a case study to prove their findings
which is House of Tara, on how the firm survive among others international brand such as
MAC, Maybelline, Mary Kay and Dior. It such a magic when the firm able to distinguish itself,
upgrading to the status of a market leader through its ability to participate in CSR activities
focused on empowering women and raising young entrepreneurs in the beauty industry.

Examples of CSR activities done by House of Tara are (i) breast cancer awareness,
partnerships with Genevieve Pink Ball Foundation through provision of increased funding for
quality breast cancer research, (ii) scholarship into the House of Tara make-up schools for
budding makeup artists, (iii) Beauty Business on the Go (BBOG), partnership with First City
Monument Bank, Nigeria, House of Tara has dedicated a platform to groom women that have
passion to become beauty representatives, and (iv) 100 voices, an initiative to create awareness
and support their make-up artists who decide to build their own businesses.

Regarding these activities, House of Tara gain the strategic benefits. Firstly, increase
the organization‘s reputation among its various stakeholders as consumer have gotten attached
to the brand not solely because of the quality or price of the product, in comparison to other
international brands that operate in same market, but consumers get the satisfaction from every
purchase they make. Secondly, tighten the internal communication as firm heavily invests in

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training its workers, providing them with an avenue to collaborate with the organization should
any of their workers decide to start their own beauty firm, thus creating a body of employees
that are very passionate about the brand and the success of the organization.

Lastly, foster the corporate advertising and advocacy of firm as the first international
recognition of the brand in Africa‘s SMME awards in South Africa in 2007 was a result of the
brand‘s social responsible activities, which further created brand awareness of House of Tara.
The firm also manage to linked with the organization‘s mission of empowering women through
beauty and makeup entrepreneurship by the CSR activities.

The authors suppose include quantitative method such as structures questionnaire,

SPSS and the Five Point Likert-Scale answer by doing survey to people about what their
opinion of House of Tara. Next, the authors should add more example of another SMEs
company apart that House of Tara which successfully used CSR activities as the path to
maximize their organizational profit.

4.0 CONCLUSION

With all the CSR activities, the authors prove that it can flourish an organization same
goes with House of Tara. This SME’s company manage to strengthen their corporate image,
building trust among stakeholders such as consumer and employee. The authors also claim that
by doing CSR, it can be a strategic tool for ensuring sustainability in a highly competitive
business environment, especially for SMEs that generally lack the resources needed to
successfully compete with multinational corporations.

Other than that, it can build a strong relationship with stakeholders, private organization
and government. I also recommend to SMEs company to involve in corporate social
responsibility as it has a lot of benefits to the company and the society.