Environmental Concern of Owner‐Managers and Environmental Practices of SMEs: A Typology Considering Size and Sector‐Specific Environmental Regulations

Previous works have highlighted that small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) are responsible for approximately 60%–70% of European industrial pollution, which has led scholars to investigate whether owner‐managers, the most influential decision‐makers in SMEs, actually care about environmental issues. Although existing works have identified various antecedents of owner‐managers' environmental concern, limited attention has been paid to understand how they could turn such environmental concern into environmental practices. Therefore, the present research explores how owner‐managers' environmental concern influences the environmental practices of SMEs, whereas considering the effects of company size and sector‐specific environmental regulations. Relying on interviews with 19 Belgian SME owner‐managers, we contribute to the existing literature by providing a typology classifying SMEs' environmental practices according to their owner‐managers' environmental concern and considering company size and environmental sectoral regulations. Four profiles emerge from this typology: climate change champions, green opportunists, eco‐compliant followers and routine entrepreneurs. This typology highlights the fact that micro‐enterprises are more likely to adopt environmental practices when they are mandatory. In contrast, the adoption of environmental practices is more likely to result from owner‐managers' environmental concern in small to medium‐sized firms.