Abstract
Research on SME growth has focused largely on financial performance, giving limited attention to how firms define and integrate the ‘social’ within their development processes. This study examines social value as a growth process, addressing how small firms embed social considerations into business practices and decision-making. Using an inductive multiple-case analysis of 21 UK SMEs engaged in socially oriented activities, the study identify three antecedents shaping this process: the deliberation of intent to do right, the articulation of social value through doing good, and the materiality of social value represented in growth narratives. The interaction of these antecedents produces four archetypes that demonstrate diverse ways SMEs align social and economic objectives. The study contributes to contextual understandings of SME growth by showing how social value is constructed and enacted as part of enterprise development rather than separate from it.