Ações de responsabilidade sociocioambiental e o desempenho econômico-financeiro em micro e pequenas empresas do Nordeste brasileiro

Abstract

The present research aimed to analyze the relationship between socio-environmental responsibility actions and economic-financial performance in Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) located in the northeastern region of Brazil. To do so, we worked with a sample of 55 MSEs characterized as "socially and environmentally responsible," according to the sustainable guidelines model of the Global Reporting Initiative - GRI (2013). To achieve the objective, content analysis, descriptive statistics, and the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test were used, with data collected from the Econodata portal and MSEs' websites and social media. The study's results indicated that the MSEs "Água Mineral Refresq," "L7 Logistica," and "Epesol Energia Solar Ltda." were the ones that showed the most socio-environmental responsibility actions. It was found that 33 MSEs were categorized in the group of companies that showed fewer socio-environmental responsibility practices, and 22 were classified in the group of companies that displayed more socio-environmental responsibility actions. It was also observed that there were no statistically significant differences between the group of MSEs that disclose more socio-environmental responsibility actions and the group that shows fewer socio-environmental responsibility actions. Thus, the hypothesis that MSEs that evidence more socio-environmental responsibility actions achieve higher economic-financial performance than those that evidence fewer socio-environmental responsibility actions was rejected.