The effect of a CSR approach on the performance of small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) is an issue that deserves to be addressed to researchers, practitioners, and public and private managers. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the causality between social norms and the performance of 1,076 SMEs. The results show that the implementation of environmental or ethical certification enables SMEs to increase their added value, improve their turnover, and boost the productivity of their financial capitals. On the other hand, certification has no effect on the labor productivity of SMEs’s aims to provide a significant contribution to research.
