Enhancing SMEs to Become More Sustainable

Sammanfattning: Small, and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have recently been identified as high contributors to social and environmental issues globally. Due to this, there has been a high demand for SMEs to become more sustainable, and as such many studies have researched the benefits that accrue to SMEs that implement sustainable practices: serving as a motivation for most SMEs. However, it has not been easy for some SMEs since they are reported to face many challenges that prevent them from smoothly adopting such practices. With most current studies on barriers SMEs face when adopting sustainable practices being on OECD countries, this study aims to gain a better understanding of what prevents SMEs in the context of emerging economies from adopting sustainable business practices. The study also aims to identify the factors that can enable SMEs to overcome the barriers and the roles various stakeholders can play, since existing studies on enabling factors, in general, are fewer. To investigate this, an analytical framework that was developed based on the concept of barriers, enablers, and stakeholder theory was used as a guide for data collection and analysis. The study used the single case qualitative research design approach where Ghana was used as the representative case with representatives of SMEs and diverse stakeholder categories being interviewed. Through a content analysis, the barriers and enabling factors to the adoption of sustainable business practices were classified into seven themes: organizational, managerial, and attitudinal, training and skills development, infrastructure/technological, financial, informational, governmental, and market and business context. Lack of awareness, lack of adequate regulatory frameworks, lack of demand for sustainable products, lack of skills, and lack of funds are among the factors perceived as barriers. The enabling factors include awareness creation, enhancement of corporate governance, implementation and enforcement of sustainability policies, capacity building, etc. Stakeholders identified to be relevant to help SMEs overcome the barriers include governmental agencies, consumers, financial institutions, international organizations, industry associations, NGOs, academia, sustainability experts, etc. The roles these stakeholders can play also ranges from creating awareness, training, and building capacities, to providing financial and technical support, monitoring, and ensuring the enforcement of regulations, providing advisory services, developing sustainability strategies and goals, etc. The study concludes by emphasizing the relevance of collaboration and partnership among SMEs and between the various stakeholders and organizations since it was realized that the enabling factors are highly interlinked and so the roles of each stakeholder should be seen as important.