The importance of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) contributions to the nations' economies in the world is an undebatable fact. The same applies to Malaysia with 98.5% of the total business establishments being SMEs; contributing to 65.3% of total employment and 36.3% of GDP. Supports from the Government are never fading with huge allocations of budget every year but yet registering high failure rate. Sustainable growth of SMEs is long overdue. The awareness of the importance of sustainable growth of SMEs has resulted in the presence of various definitions and concepts of sustainable growth. This paper seeks to explore the literature on long-term and sustainable growth for SMEs and the enhanced knowledge on this area willbe aguidance to the policy makers, supporting agencies, advisors, entrepreneurs and academicians to seriously develop an all-encompassing model for sustainable growth of SMEs. This paper suggests an integrated sustainable growth model of SMEs with four dimensions of the economic factors.

The primary objective of this paper is to contribute to the existing literatures by comprehensively reviewing the definitions, concept, as well as the importance of innovative and innovativeness in the business world. This review covers various definitions of innovation and innovativeness, multi dimensions of innovation and how this innovation acts to generate a good firm performance and competitive advantage, relying strongly on the famous Resource-Based View theory. Since the term 'innovation' itself is quite difficult to interpret, observe or evaluate, as argued by many scholars, this review attempts to provide discussion and enhance understanding on these concepts especially in the firm's context. This review could shed some dynamic ideas for future researchers to further identify, conceptualize and understand the underlying theories and perspectives which strongly influence the previous, current and future concept of innovation.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to redefine the concept of organizational sustainability by assimilating corporate spirituality into the concept of the triple bottom line (TBL). Design/methodology/approach This paper is a conceptual paper which presents a newly coined concept for sustainable organizations as a result of a literature study on management and psychology fields. This study explores the concept of competitive advantage, research-based view (RBV) theory, spiritual leadership theory (SLT), positive environmental psychology (PEP) and human resource development (HRD) to fill the void of “soul” as an element in TBL, which is seen as a barrier that prevents organizations from being more holistically sustainable. Findings The paper provides new insights into the redefinition of organizational sustainability by introducing quadruple bottom line (QBL), effectively a combination of management and psychological disciplines. This paper also proposes measurements of corporate spirituality, adapted from well-established mental health research, which have been used in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as well. Research limitations/implications Researchers are encouraged to test the proposed concept further. Practical implications The paper includes implications for the development of sustainable organizations by offering CEOs and managers corporate spirituality support with which they can make wise decisions when considering environmental, societal and economic perspectives in their operations. Originality/value The QBL concept promises to contribute significantly to the growth of more comprehensive, holistic and sustainable organizations, as well as to extend the current literature on organizational sustainability.

Purpose For Bangladeshi small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the COVID-19 economic shock is remarkable in both its complexity and intensity. SMEs need systemic inspiration to solve the crisis, aligned with a moral and authentic approach that serves both the leader and the follower’s interests. This study aims to conceptualize the innovation-focused success method of SMEs before and after the pandemic to manage the crisis by establishing spiritual leadership based on Islamic perspectives. Design/methodology/approach To discuss the impact of spiritual leadership on innovation-focused SME performance configuration through the lens of a crisis, a comprehensive literature study has been carried out in which over 360 articles are read and reviewed by the authors. It has also established the reliability and validity of literature analysis. Also, a qualitative investigation has been used to support the direction of the study. Findings For a subsequent process of scientific deployment and evaluation of its execution, a new applied strategic innovation-focused SME success configuration through spiritual leadership development is made available. The primary value of this paradigm is the potential to calculate and treat the aspects of spiritual leadership obtained from Islamic ideas. Research limitations/implications Prior analytical or empirical attempts from multiple viewpoints are subsequently needed to inquire about the proposed conceptualization. Practical implications Among the realistic consequences of this analysis is that while a number of leadership paradigms have been embraced by a broad body of leadership studies, the findings indicate that this paper should pay heed to the influential spiritual style of leadership, taking into account Islamic perspectives on the context of crisis. Therefore, Bangladeshi SMEs need to develop and run leadership training programs focused on the Islamic viewpoint of spirituality to encourage the actions of leaders during and after crises. Social implications The legal and moral values of the society would ultimately be upgraded from this conceptualization. Moreover, less corruption in corporate activities would improve the economic prosperity of a nation. It would also contribute to the cross-cultural portrayal of the positive picture of Islam. Originality/value This holistic conceptualization describes the mediating role of strategic innovation practices based on theoretical foundations, which have seldom been done in previous research, between the Islamic model of spiritual leadership and SME success during and after a crisis.

Technological innovations have emerged as crucially significant factor for sustaining market competition and achieving sustainable competitive advantage in the 21st century. The Multinational Corporations (MNCs) as celebrities of innovation play significant role in diffusing technological knowledge throughout firms both nationally and internationally. Although numerous studies exist on technology transfer the majority of existing literature addresses the issues related to inter-firm transfer of technology only while the area related to intra-firm transfer of technology has been largely underexposed; study of which is believed to be ideal for fruitful exploration of profitability in technology transfer projects. By exploring the existing relevant literature, the current study would attempt to posit a new model in regards to the effect of host-country cultural environment on the performance of technology transferred by the MNCs to their subsidiaries in Malaysia and its subsequent impact on the corporate sustainability of the firm. In the present study the relative influence of two cultural environment factors, namely national cultural distance and organizational cultural distance have been addressed and the study is expected to contribute both theoretically in the body of knowledge and also in terms of practical implication for policy makers of the host-country and the involved MNCs and hence enriching the existing intra-firm technology transfer literature simultaneously.