SME Adoption of Environmental Management Practices: Four Exploratory Case Studies

Ronald C. Beckett

Chapter 5 in Understanding Organizations in Complex, Emergent and Uncertain Environments, 2012, pp 84-105 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Summary Our interest is in stimulating change to support long-term sustainability. An increasing number of enterprises are introducing environmental management systems, but the rate of uptake is lower in SMEs than in large firms. Four cases that involve SMEs are considered in this paper with the aim of understanding what might embed environment-friendly practices in such firms. Two cases describe regional initiatives, one aimed at local micro-businesses and the other aimed at SMEs across an Australian state. The other two cases provide observations from two SMEs that have embarked on an ISO 14000 accreditation journey. Drawing on the literature, two propositions are considered: firstly that the use of some formal instrument like ISO 14000 helps to embed desirable practices within a firm, and secondly that all business functions within a firm need to be engaged in some way. Two cross-case comparisons are presented: one considering the use of instruments in the four cases, and another considering the way various business functions were engaged. While there is support for the proposition, a number of issues emerged: matters of progressive implementation, blending agency and structure; the nature of effective change agents, the interaction of creative problem-solving, organizational learning, innovation and change, and concerns about emerging ‘green tape’ bureaucracy.

Keywords: Sustainability; environmental management systems; small and medium enterprises (SMEs) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-02608-8_5

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DOI: 10.1057/9781137026088_5

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