Business sustainability: understanding the influence of managers and stakeholders on adopting sustainability practices in Nigerian SMEs

The importance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in any economy must be balanced, yet hardly the sector attracts the needed attention for sustainability. This has led to unacceptable high mortality rates for the sector, especially in emerging contexts. Nevertheless, SMEs and sustainability agenda share significant melting pots of disrupting large-scale extreme poverty, among other benefits. Numerous literature supports this and acknowledges SMEs' potential for national employment, investment stimulation and gross domestic growth (GDP). This study aimed to unveil the impacts of managerial characteristics and stakeholders on Nigerian SME sustainability practices to understand SME business sustainability practices in developing countries. To fully investigate these impacts, three research questions enabled the navigation of this project. Firstly, to ascertain the current antecedents influencing SME sustainability practices. Secondly, we quizzed the relationship between the manager's characteristics and Nigerian SME sustainability practices. Furthermore, finally, we sort out how stakeholders influence SMEs' sustainability practices in Nigeria. A qualitative research approach was adopted within an interpretivist philosophical paradigm to construct participants narrated perspectives of sustainability practices. Data were collected from twenty-two (22) Nigerian SME owners/managers and nine (9) stakeholders in semi-structured interviews, virtually. Participants' information was inductively condensed, analysed and thematically framed using the Upper Echelon and Stakeholder concepts. The findings were dimensionally extracted using Gioia's step/order analysis to develop a data structure for each research question. The findings for the current antecedence include the political and governance dimension, the cultural and societal dimension, the economic dimension, and the business orientation dimension. In contrast, the findings for the relationship between managerial characteristics and sustainability practices include observable dimensions and cognitive values. The finding for stakeholder influence on sustainability practices includes the managerial alignment dimension and the dimension of stakeholders’ intervention. Asides from the contribution to knowledge, the result presented national, organisational and managerial practical implications. Diverse organisational and regulatory policy implications were also presented with future research directions.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

PhD

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Wolverhampton

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Akor, Mathias

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Yamak, Sibel
• Mahmood, Samia

• small and medium sized enterprise
• SMEs
• business sustainability
• emerging contexts
• sustainability practices
• qualitative approach
• owners-managers characteristics
• stakeholder influence
• upper echelon concept
• current antecedence
• Igbo apprentice scheme
• business orientation

Statement dc:rights

• Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Licence

• https://wlv.dspace7.openrepository.com/bitstreams/455000f5-b14a-4b60-872f-39640730d67b/download