Sustainable practices among SME owner-managers : The influence of owner-managers’ profiles
Pages 197 to 228
Cite this article
- PARADAS, Agnès,
- REVELLI, Christophe,
- DEBRAY, Caroline,
- COURRENT, Jean-Marie
- and SPENCE, Martine,
- Paradas, Agnès.,
- et al.
- Paradas, A.,
- Revelli, C.,
- Debray, C.,
- Courrent, J.-M.
- and Spence, M.
https://doi.org/10.3917/entre.163.0197
Cite this article
- Paradas, A.,
- Revelli, C.,
- Debray, C.,
- Courrent, J.-M.
- and Spence, M.
- Paradas, Agnès.,
- et al.
- PARADAS, Agnès,
- REVELLI, Christophe,
- DEBRAY, Caroline,
- COURRENT, Jean-Marie
- and SPENCE, Martine,
https://doi.org/10.3917/entre.163.0197
The challenges faced by SME owner-managers regarding Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are increasing. Not only do SMEs represent an important part of the global economy, they also have major environmental, social, and local impacts within the communities in which they are embedded. In addition, the sustainable practices implemented in SMEs are often initiated by their owner-managers. Consequently, the impact of SME owner-managers’ characteristics on the development of sustainable practices needs to be investigated. Few prior studies look at SME owner-managers’ impact on their firms’ sustainable involvement, and most assess their intentions rather than the practices put in place. To fill this gap, an empirical study conducted in France and Canada with 212 SME owner-managers focused on the one hand on their intrinsic characteristics, such as age and gender, and on the other on their extrinsic characteristics, such as education level and personal actions taken to increase environmental awareness. Results show that whilst the gender of the SME owner-manager does not have an impact on their firms’ sustainable practices, education and mainly owner-managers’ personal involvement in environmental protection have a significant impact on these practices. In some contexts, the influence of age can be explained by the owner-managers’ experience.
Publisher keywords: age, CSR, education<np pagenum="199"/>, gender, SME, sustainable involvement