The Effect of the CEO's Corporate Social Responsibility Competency on the Commitment and Performance of Relationship with Partners: Focused on Local Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

(Purpose) This study aims to identify the importance of those external factors and CSR factors of the local SMEs’ CEO and to examine their effect on the relationship commitment with partners. By laying the foundation for research that reveals the importance of the role of the CEO of SMEs, this study will promote and extend related research in the future. Also, the purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the CEO's sustainable management on the relationship with partners through the previous literature backgrounds on the characteristics and roles of the CEO of SMEs and partnerships. (Design/methodology/approach) This study analyzed the capabilities of local companies(SMEs) in Yeungnam region, and analyzed factors that could strengthen competitiveness and relationship ties with partners. This study analyzed the capabilities of local companies (SMEs) in Yeungnam region, and analyzed factors that could strengthen competitiveness and relationship ties with partners. Partner companies with long-lasting relationships were selected as a sample and surveyed through face-to-face and online questionnaire methods, and the hypotheses assumed in this study were verified by structural model verification using AMOS26. (Findings) The results of this study confirmed that partner companies' perceptions of the social responsibility of local enterprises(SMEs) in Busan, which were not addressed in previous studies, are factors that positively influence structural coupling and social bonds. In addition, it was possible to partially supplement the problems of measurement methods in existing studies, and the possibility of new research was confirmed by verifying the relationship between SMEs and partners. (Research implications or Originality) This study has the following theoretical implications. First, the structural relationship of B2B relationship marketing variables was confirmed by using corporate social responsibility, which was not covered by previous studies, as a tool to measure the relationship with partners. This study verified the causal relationship with relational attitude variables in the process of relationship development by additionally applying corporate regional responsibility and continuous responsibility. Second, beyond the limitations of previous studies that mainly dealt with personal and environmental factors, this study additionally introduced social responsibility variables. Partners' perceptions of the enterprise cannot be easily controlled.