Social Sustainability Practices on Small Businesses in Developing Economies: A Case of South Africa

Reginald Masocha
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Reginald Masocha: School of Economics and Management, University of Limpopo, Sovenga 0727, South Africa

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 12, 1-13

Abstract: This study makes a significant contribution towards theory and knowledge of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) within the social sustainability discourse. The study focused on investigating if SMEs in developing economies directly benefit from practising social sustainability through examining the relationship between social sustainability and financial performance, customer satisfaction as well as employee satisfaction. A total of 238 SMEs from the Limpopo province of South Africa were surveyed through a self-administered questionnaire at the hand of convenience sampling technique. The hypotheses in the study were assessed through structural equation modelling (SEM) through AMOS software version 25. The study results revealed that all three postulated hypotheses were supported. Thus, social sustainability was found to be positively and significantly associated with financial performance, customer satisfaction performance as well as employee satisfaction performance. The findings in this study indicate that by practising social sustainability, SMEs potentially benefit on a broader performance spectrum.

Keywords: social sustainability; sustainable development; SMEs; South Africa; firm performance; developing economies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:12:p:3257-:d:239341

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