Sustainability Management and Small and Medium‐Sized Enterprises: Managers' Awareness and Implementation of Innovative Tools

Abstract

With the intention of integrating environmental and social practices in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a growing body of research proposes the implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental management tools. Collectively referred to as sustainability management tools in this paper, voluntary management approaches range from environmental and social audits, indicators, and management systems, to reporting schemes and stakeholder dialogues. While the adoption of such management tools in SMEs has been increasingly anticipated in the academic literature, the rates of awareness and implementation for these management tools are missing. Furthermore, the connections between awareness and implementation remain underresearched. Using a framework for innovation diffusion, the results from a web-based survey with 176 German SME managers investigate these connections. Rogers' model is particularly useful to identify managerial and organizational characteristics that might explain why particular SMEs are more likely to adopt sustainability management tools.The survey produced 176 completed questionnaires from the original 1000 surveys e-mailed. From the total sample, 68 responding managers (38.6%) are employed in small enterprises and 108 managers (61.4%) belong to mediumsized enterprises. The response rate of 17.6% is comparable with other quantitative surveys with similar research objectives in SMEs (Graafland et al., 2003;Gadenne et al., 2009;Brammer et al., 2012). It provides a solid basis 276M. Johnson

Corporate Social Responsibility: Its Effect on SMEs

“…These results are in line with integrative theories, such as the stakeholder theory addressed by Werther Jr & Chandler (2010) and Carroll & Buchholtz (2014) who state that social CSR practices are vital for company growth and development, as well as for achieving more significant results in terms of profitability. Similar conclusions are discussed and supported by several empirical studies suggesting that companies should focus on the integral satisfaction of their employees, their managers, and also their communities (Johnson, 2015;Moore & Manring, 2009). Our results are similar to the findings made by Martinez-Conesa, Soto-Acosta, & Palacios-Manzano (2017); Reverte, Gómez-Melero, & Cegarra-Navarro (2016), where they show that CSR is divided mainly into social and economic practices, substantially increase the profitability of companies.…”

Effective Life Cycle Management in SMEs: Use of a Sector-Based Approach to Overcome Barriers

“…On the other hand, given the influence of the owner/manager in SMEs, a positive attitude towards the environment and sustainability can result in the decision to implement and integrate approaches such as LCM into the organisation [80]. It has been argued that due to the hierarchy and decision-making characteristics of SMEs, smaller companies may be in a better position than larger organisations to innovate for sustainability [24].…”

A Conceptual Model of Forces Driving the Introduction of a Sustainability Report in SMEs: Evidence from a Case Study

“…Johnson, in its research on German SMEs (Johnson, 2015), found that the rate of awareness and implementation of the sustainability management of managers is lacking.…”

“…Recent papers have thus related the level of engagement and involvement from multiple functional areas of the enterprise to the effectiveness of implementation of sustainability innovative tools (Johnson, 2015;Ditillo and Lisi, 2016).…”

“…Several are the innovative sustainability management tools that a SME could adopt. For a review, see Passetti et al, 2014;Johnson, 2015;Johnson and Schaltegger, 2016. Note 3. In literature, the firms' motives to engage in sustainability are briefly ascribed to two kind of factors: external factors and internal factors (Thijssens et al, 2016).…”