Motivational Dynamics Predicting Waste Efficiency Implementation within SMEs

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for 70% of industrial pollution in the UK. The UK Government aims to implement waste efficiency across the SME sector as part of a set of strategies which will enable a radical reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050. In addition to reducing environmental impacts, improving waste efficiency is also considered to be an effective way to reduce costs and strengthen the financial performance of a business. This has been used to motivate UK SMEs to seek the public support available to help them become waste efficient. Nonetheless, practitioners in England faced recurrent problems regarding the SME’s commitment to engage with the available support. The aim of this thesis was to establish motivational factors involving SME owner-managers that predict engagement with the public support available in the form of implementation of waste efficiency advice. It takes an organismic approach and thus contains three distinct primary studies which developed gradually from each other. The first study used mixed methods to investigate apriori documentation of the responses from 181 SMEs on the support received as part of a public waste efficiency initiative. The second study applied qualitative methods to explore the outcomes of the first study from the perspective of 6 waste efficiency advisors. Thereafter, the third study used previous findings and self-determination theory to conceptualise motivational dynamics, involving SME owners/managers, which can predict waste efficiency advice implementation within their respective organisations. The questionnaire responses from 59 SMEs were used to perform multiple linear regressions which tested a number of hypotheses regarding motivations and contextual experiences, in relation to the extent of waste efficiency advice enactment within the SME. The principal novel contribution of this thesis is that it establishes that there are two important motivational dynamics underpinning waste efficiency implementation in SMEs. One is associated with SME owner/managers’ self-determination to adopt waste efficiency, contradicting the belief that SMEs improve their practices driven by self-interest. The other is related to the extent to which SME owners/managers experience autonomy-support and competence towards waste efficiency advice implementation. These results have important implications for both research and practice.

Grantor dc:publisher

Oxford Brookes University

Year dc:date

2017

Author dc:creator

• Nunes Esposo, Claudia

Contributors dc:contributor

• Burgess, Mark

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved

Language dc:language

en

DOI dc:identifier

https://doi.org/10.24384/sesh-hr89

OAI identifier oai:identifier

tle:0332bd98-2ded-4996-91ee-0bb4f9ebb69a:d6bd9758-527a-46cd-bfe2-c433766e8fca:1