I will miss many of you at AALS this weekend because on Sunday morning I am speaking on a panel on corporate social responsibility in small businesses and startups at a conference for the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) in San Diego. My co-panelists include: Julian Lange, Governor Craig R. Benson Professor of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, Associate Professor, Babson College; Megan M. Carpenter, Professor of Law, Co-Director, Center for Law and Intellectual Property, Faculty Director, IP and Technology Law Clinic, Faculty Director, Entrepreneurship Law Clinic, Texas A&M University School of Law; Sandra Malach, Senior Instructor, Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Canada, former counsel at the Venture Development Legal Clinic, and previous positions at Stantec Engineering, Bennett Jones Barristers & Solicitors, Enron, and SAIT; and John Tyler, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The abstract that we presented to conference organizers stated:

Entrepreneurial and small businesses are increasingly incorporating “people, planet, and profits” into their business models and operations to a degree that goes beyond simply fulfilling the requirements of government regulations. Moreover, it can be argued that expanding a company’s mission to include issues such as sustainability can create competitive advantage in nurturing customer loyalty and employee commitment to company success.   Through the use of presentations, interactive exercises, and group discussion, this workshop will provide participants with an opportunity to examine the implications for entrepreneurs and small business owners of including corporate social responsibility in their business models.

I’ll be discussing consumer attitudes toward CSR in the US, the EU, Canada, Asia and other parts of the world, and I will blog about the panel as a whole next week. Regular readers of this blog know that I am generally pretty skeptical about consumers and CSR. They often say a lot about their concern for ethical practices in surveys, but they often purchase based on quality, price, and convenience. CSR does, however, help companies with regulators. A recent study indicated that regulators may impose lighter penalties on corrupt companies with good CSR records.

If you have any thoughts, or more important, any research that you would like me to share with the audience, particularly as it relates to CSR and benefit or social purpose corporations, please leave a comment below or email me at mnarine@stu.edu (before Sunday morning if you want me to share it with USASBE).