IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v10y2018i6p2105-d153491.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainable Practices in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Ecuador

Author

Listed:
  • Paúl Sarango-Lalangui

    (Department of Business Science, Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL), Loja 11-01-608, Ecuador
    Department of Business, University of Barcelona, 08034 Barcelona, Spain)

  • José Álvarez-García

    (Financial Economy and Accounting Department, Faculty of Finance, Business and Tourism, University of Extremadura, 10071 Cáceres, Spain)

  • María De la Cruz Del Río-Rama

    (Business Organisation and Marketing Department, Faculty of Business Administration and Tourism, University of Vigo, 32004 Ourense, Spain)

Abstract

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as larger enterprises, generate economic, social, and environmental impacts on their environment. However, in the case of these types of enterprises, the accumulation of these impacts is very significant in the immediate surroundings where they offer their products and services. This discussion is particularly relevant in Ecuador, where 99% of all enterprises are SMEs. The objective of this research is to find out if small and medium-sized enterprises in this country are involved in the adoption of sustainable practices as well as see if there are significant differences in adoption based on size, sector, and age. The methodology used is the performance of a descriptive analysis and regression of the data obtained through a structured questionnaire (indicators of the Ethos Institute of Brazil). Previously, the reliability of the questionnaire was validated through an exploratory factor analysis. The target population consists of 9843 enterprises, obtaining a sample size of 188 valid surveys, which implies a response rate of 2%, representing a sampling error of ±7.08%. The results obtained enabled us to perform a sustainability diagnosis of SMEs in Ecuador, identifying the strengths and weaknesses. The managers have a positive and favourable attitude towards sustainability. The practices considered show a medium-high implementation level of 79.71% in economic sustainability, 82.28% in social sustainability, and 78.14% in environmental sustainability in the enterprises considered in the sample. Although these percentages are significant, there is plenty of scope for improvement.

Suggested Citation

  • Paúl Sarango-Lalangui & José Álvarez-García & María De la Cruz Del Río-Rama, 2018. "Sustainable Practices in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Ecuador," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-15, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:6:p:2105-:d:153491
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/6/2105/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/6/2105/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Beatty, Randolph P. & Ritter, Jay R., 1986. "Investment banking, reputation, and the underpricing of initial public offerings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1-2), pages 213-232.
    2. Hockerts, Kai & Wüstenhagen, Rolf, 2010. "Greening Goliaths versus emerging Davids -- Theorizing about the role of incumbents and new entrants in sustainable entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 481-492, September.
    3. Markus Milne & Rob Gray, 2013. "W(h)ither Ecology? The Triple Bottom Line, the Global Reporting Initiative, and Corporate Sustainability Reporting," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 118(1), pages 13-29, November.
    4. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    5. Dong-Shang Chang & Sheng-Hung Chen & Chia-Wei Hsu & Allen H. Hu, 2015. "Identifying Strategic Factors of the Implantation CSR in the Airline Industry: The Case of Asia-Pacific Airlines," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(6), pages 1-22, June.
    6. Jennifer C. Chen & Dennis M. Patten & Robin Roberts, 2008. "Corporate Charitable Contributions: A Corporate Social Performance or Legitimacy Strategy?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 82(1), pages 131-144, September.
    7. Herrera Madueño, Jesús & Larrán Jorge, Manuel & Lechuga Sancho, María Paula & Martínez-Martínez, Domingo, 2016. "Responsabilidad social en las pymes: análisis exploratorio de factores explicativos," Revista de Contabilidad - Spanish Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 31-44.
    8. Mark Groza & Mya Pronschinske & Matthew Walker, 2011. "Perceived Organizational Motives and Consumer Responses to Proactive and Reactive CSR," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 102(4), pages 639-652, September.
    9. Cohen, Boyd & Winn, Monika I., 2007. "Market imperfections, opportunity and sustainable entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 29-49, January.
    10. Alamo Alexandre da Silva Batista & Antonio Carlos de Francisco, 2018. "Organizational Sustainability Practices: A Study of the Firms Listed by the Corporate Sustainability Index," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-13, January.
    11. Parrish, Bradley D., 2010. "Sustainability-driven entrepreneurship: Principles of organization design," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 510-523, September.
    12. Ricart, Joan E. & Rodríguez, Miguel A. & Sanchez, Pablo, 2002. "Sustainable development and sustainability of competitive advantage: A dynamic and sustainable view of the firm," IESE Research Papers D/462, IESE Business School.
    13. Bradley D. Parrish & Valerie A. Luzadis & William R. Bentley, 2005. "What Tanzania's coffee farmers can teach the world: a performance-based look at the fair trade-free trade debate," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(3), pages 177-189.
    14. Lutz Preuss & Jack Perschke, 2010. "Slipstreaming the Larger Boats: Social Responsibility in Medium-Sized Businesses," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 92(4), pages 531-551, April.
    15. Sofia Garcia-Torres & Marta Rey-Garcia & Laura Albareda-Vivo, 2017. "Effective Disclosure in the Fast-Fashion Industry: from Sustainability Reporting to Action," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-27, December.
    16. Szopik-Depczyńska, Katarzyna & Cheba, Katarzyna & Bąk, Iwona & Kiba-Janiak, Maja & Saniuk, Sebastian & Dembińska, Izabela & Ioppolo, Giuseppe, 2017. "The application of relative taxonomy to the study of disproportions in the area of sustainable development of the European Union," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 481-491.
    17. W. David Eberle & F. Gregory Hayden, 1991. "Critique of Contingent Valuation and Travel Cost Methods for Valuing Natural Resources and Ecosystems," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(3), pages 649-687, September.
    18. Luis Roberto Arruda & Valdir De Jesus Lameira & Osvaldo Luiz Gonçalves Quelhas & Fernando Neves Pereira, 2013. "Sustainability in the Brazilian Heavy Construction Industry: An Analysis of Organizational Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(10), pages 1-17, September.
    19. Kuosmanen, Timo & Kuosmanen, Natalia, 2009. "How not to measure sustainable value (and how one might)," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 235-243, December.
    20. Andrea Stanaland & May Lwin & Patrick Murphy, 2011. "Consumer Perceptions of the Antecedents and Consequences of Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 102(1), pages 47-55, August.
    21. Edward Freeman, R. & Evan, William M., 1990. "Corporate governance: A stakeholder interpretation," Journal of Behavioral Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 337-359.
    22. José Allouche & Patrice Laroche, 2005. "A Meta-analytical investigation of the relationship between corporate social and financial performance," Post-Print hal-00923906, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andreas Moursellas & Debashree De & Thomas Wurzer & Antonios Skouloudis & Gerald Reiner & Atanu Chaudhuri & Theodoros Manousidis & Chrisovalantis Malesios & Konstantinos Evangelinos & Prasanta Kumar D, 2023. "Sustainability Practices and Performance in European Small-and-Medium Enterprises: Insights from Multiple Case Studies," Circular Economy and Sustainability, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 835-860, June.
    2. Waqas Nawaz & Muammer Koç, 2019. "Exploring Organizational Sustainability: Themes, Functional Areas, and Best Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-36, August.
    3. Claudia Dias & Ricardo Gouveia Rodrigues & João J. Ferreira, 2022. "Linking natural resources and performance of small agricultural businesses: Do entrepreneurial orientation and environmental sustainability orientation matter?," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(4), pages 713-725, August.
    4. Reginald Masocha, 2019. "Social Sustainability Practices on Small Businesses in Developing Economies: A Case of South Africa," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-13, June.
    5. Malesios, Chrisovalantis & De, Debashree & Moursellas, Andreas & Dey, Prasanta Kumar & Evangelinos, Konstantinos, 2021. "Sustainability performance analysis of small and medium sized enterprises: Criteria, methods and framework," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    6. Malesios, Chrisovalantis & De, Debashree & Moursellas, Andreas & Dey, Prasanta & Evangelinos, Konstantinos, 2019. "Review of Statistical Modeling Approaches for Sustainability Analysis of Small and Medium sized Enterprises," MPRA Paper 93028, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Wunhong Su & Liuzhen Zhang & Chao Ge & Shuai Chen, 2022. "Association between Internal Control and Sustainability: A Literature Review Based on the SOX Act Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-30, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Heshmati, Almas, 2015. "A Review of the Circular Economy and its Implementation," IZA Discussion Papers 9611, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Desirée Knoppen & Louise Knight, 2022. "Pursuing sustainability advantage: The dynamic capabilities of born sustainable firms," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 1789-1813, May.
    3. Denise Fischer & Malte Brettel & René Mauer, 2020. "The Three Dimensions of Sustainability: A Delicate Balancing Act for Entrepreneurs Made More Complex by Stakeholder Expectations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 87-106, April.
    4. Agnieszka Konys, 2019. "Towards Sustainable Entrepreneurship Holistic Construct," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-33, November.
    5. Ana Criado-Gomis & Amparo Cervera-Taulet & Maria-Angeles Iniesta-Bonillo, 2017. "Sustainable Entrepreneurial Orientation: A Business Strategic Approach for Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-20, September.
    6. Lucian-Ionel Cioca & Larisa Ivascu & Attila Turi & Alin Artene & George Artur Găman, 2019. "Sustainable Development Model for the Automotive Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(22), pages 1-22, November.
    7. Matthias Filser & Sascha Kraus & Norat Roig-Tierno & Norbert Kailer & Ulrike Fischer, 2019. "Entrepreneurship as Catalyst for Sustainable Development: Opening the Black Box," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-18, August.
    8. Diego Matricano, 2017. "The influence of sustainable entrepreneurship culture on start-up expectations: A comparative analysis," RIVISTA DI STUDI SULLA SOSTENIBILITA', FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 0(1), pages 71-89.
    9. Florence A. Undiyaundeye & Julius. A. Basake, 2017. "Mentoring and Career Development of Academics in Colleges of Education in Cross River State Nigeria," European Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies Articles, Revistia Research and Publishing, vol. 2, ejms_v2_i.
    10. Hall, Jeremy K. & Daneke, Gregory A. & Lenox, Michael J., 2010. "Sustainable development and entrepreneurship: Past contributions and future directions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 439-448, September.
    11. Pablo Muñoz & Boyd Cohen, 2018. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship Research: Taking Stock and looking ahead," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 300-322, March.
    12. Fabricio Carlos Schmidt & Roselaine Ruviaro Zanini & André Luis Korzenowski & Reno Schmidt Junior & Karl Benchimol Xavier do Nascimento, 2018. "Evaluation of Sustainability Practices in Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturing Enterprises in Southern Brazil," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-11, July.
    13. Brigitte Hoogendoorn & Daniela Guerra & Peter Zwan, 2015. "What drives environmental practices of SMEs?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 759-781, April.
    14. Matthew P. Johnson & Stefan Schaltegger, 2020. "Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Development: A Review and Multilevel Causal Mechanism Framework," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 44(6), pages 1141-1173, November.
    15. Muñoz, Pablo & Dimov, Dimo, 2015. "The call of the whole in understanding the development of sustainable ventures," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 632-654.
    16. Miguel-Angel Galindo-Martín & María-Soledad Castaño-Martínez & María-Teresa Méndez-Picazo, 2020. "The Relationship between Green Innovation, Social Entrepreneurship, and Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-19, June.
    17. Tianning Zhang & Shamsheer ul Haq & Xiaodi Xu & Muhammad Nadeem, 2024. "Greening ambitions: exploring factors influencing university students' intentions for sustainable entrepreneurship," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 2863-2899, December.
    18. Brunella Arru, 2020. "An integrative model for understanding the sustainable entrepreneurs’ behavioural intentions: an empirical study of the Italian context," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 3519-3576, April.
    19. Patrick Gregori & Patrick Holzmann, 2022. "Entrepreneurial practices and the constitution of environmental value for sustainability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(7), pages 3302-3317, November.
    20. Dhahri, Sabrine & Omri, Anis, 2018. "Entrepreneurship contribution to the three pillars of sustainable development: What does the evidence really say?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 64-77.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:6:p:2105-:d:153491. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.