Towards Sustainability: Examining the Drivers and Change Process within SMEs

Abstract

Sustainability appears to be at the forefront of business topics for the 21st century. Over the past twenty to thirty years, businesses have changed their attitude towards sustainability from rejection to elevating it to a key strategic organization goal, based on the realization that sustainability is not only good for the planet, but financially rewarding. This development results in the need for frameworks describing how organizations can successfully manage the change towards sustainability. This paper provides a thorough literature review of the current stage of the development of such frameworks, as well as a comparison with assessments of where 21st century corporations stand with regards to sustainability. The authors find that while valuable frameworks exist, there is a lack of understanding of whether and how these frameworks work for Small and Medium size Enterprises (SMEs). Building upon the existing models, this paper proposes a pathway for empirical research leading to the alignment and adjustment of these models to the needs of SMEs.