Stakeholder engagement for sustainable value co-creation: Evidence from made in Italy SMEs

IF 4.8 Q1 Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Business Ethics-A European Review Pub Date : 2024-01-05 DOI:10.1111/beer.12654

Michela Matarazzo, Stephen Oduro, Alessandro Gennaro

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Abstract

How Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) engage with stakeholders on their sustainable practices remains an under-researched topic in extant business research. This occurs even though SMEs play a tremendous role across all economies, and they often engage stakeholders on sustainability issues to foster their competitive advantage. In this article, drawing on stakeholder and innovation ecosystem theories, we use empirical evidence from multiple case studies of made in Italy firms operating in the fashion, food, and furniture industries to explore the proposed research model in the SME context. Our case studies analysis reveals the specific stakeholder engagement levels activated by SMEs to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for circular value co-creation. Furthermore, we find that the stakeholder engagement levels revolve chiefly around open dialog with local community and customers, involvement of employees, customers, and community, and cooperation with suppliers, Government, and Academy. Implications of the findings for researchers, managers, and policymakers are discussed.

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利益相关者参与可持续价值共创：意大利制造中小企业的证据

在现有的商业研究中，中小企业（SMEs）如何就其可持续发展实践与利益相关者进行互动仍是一个研究不足的课题。尽管中小型企业在所有经济体中都发挥着巨大作用，而且它们经常与利益相关者就可持续发展问题进行接触，以促进其竞争优势，但这一问题仍然存在。在本文中，我们借鉴利益相关者和创新生态系统理论，利用对时装、食品和家具行业的意大利制造企业进行的多个案例研究的经验证据，探讨在中小企业背景下的拟议研究模型。我们的案例研究分析揭示了中小企业为实现循环价值共创的可持续发展目标（SDGs）而激活的特定利益相关者参与水平。此外，我们还发现，利益相关者的参与程度主要围绕与当地社区和客户的公开对话，员工、客户和社区的参与，以及与供应商、政府和学院的合作。本文讨论了这些发现对研究人员、管理人员和决策者的启示。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Business Ethics-A European Review Multiple-

CiteScore

5.90

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： -To offer rigorous and informed analysis of ethical issues and perspectives relevant to organizations and their relationships with society -To promote scholarly research and advance knowledge in relation to business ethics and corporate social responsibility and social entrepreneurship by providing cutting edge theoretical and empirical analysis of salient issues and developments -To be responsive to changing concerns and emerging issues in the business ethics and business and society sphere, and to seek to reflect these in the balance of contributions -To be the publication outlet of choice for all types of original research relating to business ethics and business-society relationships. Original articles are welcomed. Each issue will normally contain several major articles, and there will be an occasional FOCUS section which will contain articles on an issue of particular importance and topicality. Other regular features will include editorial interviews, book reviews, comments and responses to published articles, research notes and case studies. Business Ethics: A European Review is well established as an academic research journal which is at the same time readable, user-friendly and authoritative. It publishes both fully refereed scholarly papers and special contributions such as speeches and reviews. The range of contributions reflects the variety and scope of ethical issues faced by business and other organisations world-wide, and at the same time seeks to address the interests and concerns of the journals readership.