Decisive factors underpinning the transition towards a more sustainable development model for French SMEs

We will analyze, using various angles, the commitment to social responsibility of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The observatory for sustainable development in SMEs (funded by the “Labex Entreprendre”) will study the links between sustainable economic performance of SMEs (from an executive’s perception to reporting practices), forms and level of commitment to sustainable development. To illustrate this, were recently analyzed the following parameters: *effects of entrepreneurial orientation, *sector, differences between entrepreneur gender, or again the level of conviction that sustainable development represent an economic interest for a company. From the results of the 2011 CSR survey (Insee), it appears that the collected data could enable us to test our research models on many observations. So we are in a capacity to build models and test hypotheses, we require the access to data on the executive’s characteristics (age, gender…) and on the company’s characteristics (sector, size, legal statues, capital).