Sustainable business models of small and medium-sized enterprises and the relationships to be established within the supply chain to support these models

Abstract

Nowadays sustainability plays a crucial role in both academia and industry, and new insights are required to answer many open questions on the topic. This study focuses on sustainable business models (SBMs) by adopting a supply chain perspective to identify the value of sustainability practices along the supply chain for different SBMs. In particular, the research investigates four small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) case studies that have been able to implement new SBMs wisely integrating the concept of sustainability with their supply chain partners. First, the results confirm that SBMs need to be supported by strong alignment with sustainability practices within the entire supply chain to be successfully implemented. Secondly, the application of the proper practices of selection, monitoring, collaboration, and integration among supply chain partners within various SBMs is the key to achieving sustainability objectives. The paper, therefore, contributes to the debate by bringing new evidence to the SBMs topic, investigating how the success of these models is possible only through a precise definition of the relationships to be established in the supply chain.