The business environment is very competitive today. To stay afloat, organisations are always trying to achieve competitive advantage. It is argued that CSR can contribute to creating competitive advantage of organisations. Despite the contribution competitive advantage bring to firms, there are not many studies that have related CSR in SMEs and its impact on the competitive advantage attained. The objective of the study was to assess the effect of CSR activities on the competitiveness of SMEs operating in the retail sector in Ndola.  The sample size for the research was 360 SME owner and employed managers. A total of 263 managed to fill in the questionnaires to provide the empirical data needed for analysis. Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. The key findings of the research were that economic responsibility was a determinant of competitiveness while philanthropic responsibility, environmental responsibility and workforce-oriented responsibility were not. Policy makers can consider giving incentives such as tax break on money spent on CSR to encourage SMEs to undertaken CSR activities to improve the competitiveness of SMEs. The research thus recommends that CSR be fully implemented by SMEs in the retail sector in Ndola and other areas in order to improve their competitiveness.

Keywords – Corporate social responsibility, competiveness, economic responsibility, philanthropic responsibility, SMEs.