Can social responsibility and circular economy be considered drivers of corporate socialization? A research on Italian SMEs

In management studies, social innovation refers to two new foci. The first one considers the firm as a network of social relations and as a community member in which technological and administrative changes are just one part of the innovation picture and, the institutional and social being fulfils equal importance.The second refers to social and environmental commitments that increasingly reflect a pure marketing strategy to better firm reputation.The original objective of this paper is to join the two foci by means a literature review and a framework arguing that the social values, the related mission, the Circular Economy (CE) culture and the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) models can be useful to achieve social ends without neglecting the marketing strategies.On these methodological bases, the paper presents a research carried out on desk on nine Italian food industry Small and Medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).The study findings highlight a limited awareness by corporate of their social role that highlights lacking declared social goals. Moreover, social and circular economy values and Agenda 2030 goals are vaguely claimed in the corporate missions that it is characterized by a strong reference at low production impact on the environment, at workers safeguard and for customer satisfaction.Finally, although the paper shows some limitations in the research, it contributes to developing the scientific literature overcoming the Elkington triple-bottom-line model and, for managers and practitioners, focusing on the firm social role being regardless profit or no profit.