Minimizing the Gap between Expectation and Ability: Strategies for SMEs to Implement Social Sustainability Practices

Priyabrata Chowdhury and Rezaul Shumon
Additional contact information
Priyabrata Chowdhury: School of Accounting, Information Systems and Supply Chain, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia
Rezaul Shumon: School of Accounting, Information Systems and Supply Chain, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 16, 1-15

Abstract: Traditionally, it is believed that small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) do not have enough ability to adopt and persistently practice social sustainability. This is because SMEs are not capital-intensive companies and neither are their returns nor skills. At the same time, the wellbeing of the employees in SMEs cannot be ensured and sustainable development goals cannot be achieved without making SMEs socially sustainable, as they account for the majority of world businesses. Moreover, the expectation of the stakeholders and subsequent pressure on SMEs to practicing social sustainability remains. Such pressure from the stakeholders creates a “mismatch problem” between stakeholders’ expectations and SMEs’ abilities to adopt socially sustainable practices. This study aims to explore what factors are responsible for this “mismatch problem”, and how SMEs can handle this mismatch to be socially sustainable firms. Based on a rigorous literature review, this study reveals that both internal issues, such as a lack of resources and awareness, and external issues, such as the non-existence of a tailored social sustainability standard for SMEs and lack of institutional support, are responsible for this gap. This study develops several propositions that highlight the requirements in various situations and provides strategies outlining the implications for SMEs and their stakeholders to make SMEs socially sustainable. Overall, this study discloses that cooperative support from stakeholders, especially during a disruption such as the COVID-19 pandemic, a finance mechanism, the development of awareness and human capital in SMEs, and a unified standard for SMEs are likely to improve social sustainability practices in SMEs.

Keywords: social sustainability; small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); stakeholder support; social sustainability awareness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/16/6408/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/16/6408/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:16:p:6408-:d:396657

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().