Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Measuring and understanding the engagement of Bangladeshi SMEs with sustainable and socially responsible business practices: an ISO 26000 perspective

Measuring and understanding the engagement of Bangladeshi SMEs with sustainable and socially... PurposeDrawing on the ‘ISO 26000: 2010 - Guidance on social responsibility’ handbook, this paper is aimed at investigating the extent to which Bangladeshi small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) are incorporating social responsibility (SR)/sustainability into their regular business activities. It is also aimed at providing insights into how Bangladeshi SME owner-managers perceive the concept of SR, and exploring the key drivers of and barriers to socially responsible and sustainable business practices.Design/methodology/approachA mixed-method research was carried out in two sequential phases. During the first phase, 110 printed questionnaires (59 of which were eventually used) were distributed among the owner-managers of the selected SMEs. The second phase involved seven in-depth semi-structured interviews.FindingsThe findings reconfirm the existence of the so called ‘attitude-behaviour’ gap. The barriers that hinder the sustainable engagement of SMEs include corruption, a weak regulatory environment, inefficient or ill-suited government and external support, and a lack of awareness of the environmental aspects of SR. In addition, this research reveals that Bangladeshi manufacturing SMEs do, to a certain degree, implement SR; only those few issues that suit the owner-managers’ personal motives are addressed, while many others (e.g. environmental issues) are neglected. Finally, it has been found that the business type and size, and the owner-managers’ educational attainments have no significant influence on the degree of adoption of socially responsible business practices by Bangladeshi manufacturing SMEs.Originality/valueThis paper develops a tool suited to meaningfully assess the socially responsible and sustainable business activities of SMEs. By utilising the four key elements identified in ISO 26000—namely, labour practices, the environment, consumer issues, and community involvement and development—and by employing an innovative and effective technique, a sustainability score and implementation level were calculated quantitatively for the selected SMEs. The tool developed here can be used to study the sustainability related issues faced by SMEs based in other low-income developing countries. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Social Responsibility Journal Emerald Publishing

Measuring and understanding the engagement of Bangladeshi SMEs with sustainable and socially responsible business practices: an ISO 26000 perspective

Hasan, Md Nazmul
Social Responsibility Journal , Volume 12 (3) – Aug 1, 2016
Download PDF
36 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/measuring-and-understanding-the-engagement-of-bangladeshi-smes-with-fYCojbiKXz

References (72)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN
1747-1117
DOI
10.1108/SRJ-08-2015-0125
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

PurposeDrawing on the ‘ISO 26000: 2010 - Guidance on social responsibility’ handbook, this paper is aimed at investigating the extent to which Bangladeshi small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) are incorporating social responsibility (SR)/sustainability into their regular business activities. It is also aimed at providing insights into how Bangladeshi SME owner-managers perceive the concept of SR, and exploring the key drivers of and barriers to socially responsible and sustainable business practices.Design/methodology/approachA mixed-method research was carried out in two sequential phases. During the first phase, 110 printed questionnaires (59 of which were eventually used) were distributed among the owner-managers of the selected SMEs. The second phase involved seven in-depth semi-structured interviews.FindingsThe findings reconfirm the existence of the so called ‘attitude-behaviour’ gap. The barriers that hinder the sustainable engagement of SMEs include corruption, a weak regulatory environment, inefficient or ill-suited government and external support, and a lack of awareness of the environmental aspects of SR. In addition, this research reveals that Bangladeshi manufacturing SMEs do, to a certain degree, implement SR; only those few issues that suit the owner-managers’ personal motives are addressed, while many others (e.g. environmental issues) are neglected. Finally, it has been found that the business type and size, and the owner-managers’ educational attainments have no significant influence on the degree of adoption of socially responsible business practices by Bangladeshi manufacturing SMEs.Originality/valueThis paper develops a tool suited to meaningfully assess the socially responsible and sustainable business activities of SMEs. By utilising the four key elements identified in ISO 26000—namely, labour practices, the environment, consumer issues, and community involvement and development—and by employing an innovative and effective technique, a sustainability score and implementation level were calculated quantitatively for the selected SMEs. The tool developed here can be used to study the sustainability related issues faced by SMEs based in other low-income developing countries.

Journal

Social Responsibility Journal – Emerald Publishing

Published: Aug 1, 2016

There are no references for this article.