75 A FRAMEWORK FOR MEASURING BUSINESS SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN MICRO AND SMALL BUSINESS M. PRETORIUS AND D. Y. DZANSI ABSTRACT Although much work has been done on the society versus business relation issue, it has yet to cascade business social responsibility (BSR) to small ventures and especially rurally based ones where survival is a more pertinent goal. Most studies to date have focused on corporate and large organisations, thereby suggesting that BSR is not really a small business issue. A major consequence/cause of this apparent bias towards large business is limited research into how small ventures and especially rural ones perceive and apply BSR. This study proposes an instrument for measuring BSR in small ventures. Through empirical analysis the resultant instrument was found to be valid for measuring small business BSR and measured four dimensions thereof namely: Expected benefits; Community/customer practices; Realised/actual benefits, BSR awareness/attitude and employee practices. Through discriminant analysis, the identified factors of BSR are useful to classify ventures as high or low sales and profit performers, suggesting that information on a firm’s BSR activities can be used as indicators of firm performance. Key words: Business Social Responsibility, Corporate Social Responsibility, Rural, Small Business. 1. INTRODUCTION Though somewhat controversial, there is little doubt that businesses acknowledge the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) (Garriga and Mele, 2004:51). However, the word “corporate” suggests something for large business only - or does it have value for small businesses that often struggle to survive? More so, do rural small businesses understand and apply BSR and if so, do they benefit from its application? How do rural small businesses perceive BSR benefits and its application? Why do small businesses engage in BSR? The answers to these questions depend on the measurement of BSR in micro ventures. To measure, a valid instrument is required. The social responsibility of business is not a new issue. Cannife (2005:6) suggests that BSR is not a choice anymore. Considerable dialogue on the subject still exists, as noted by researchers such as Wilson (1980); Thompson and Hood (1993); Van Marrewijk (2003) and Valor (2005) who report that most of the empirical studies to date have focused on large businesses. Today several informal measures exist to evaluate and inform stakeholders of public companies about their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) status (De Cleene and Interim. 2007, 6 (2)