(WBCSD) [26], the Sustainable Enterprise Academy (SEA) [36], and other consulting organizations whose purpose is to train and inform business leaders on sustainable enterprise.
? The creation of sustainable stock indexes such as the Dow Jones Sustainability
Index (DJSI), which are designed to measure the economic performance of sustainable enterprises, enabling comparison to indexes which do not measure any aspect of sustainability.
? The growing number of paid advertisements and web sites encouraging and
reporting on sustainable efforts as a competitive advantage.
? The audited sustainability reports of hundreds of leading firms that have utilized
the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) as their guide in preparing their reports. The benefits of sustainable strategic plans for SMEs are different from those offered to MNEs. With their large asset bases, MNEs can invest and spread the costs of product development over a large and diversified global market. For large firms, if a strategic plan or product introduction is not successful in one region, then perhaps, in some market half way around the globe, it will be. This realization of greater returns from R t D has generally been perceived as an advantage for larger firms, as they are incumbent in global markets. The limits and advantages of smaller firms are well described byA′ cs [37], in particular the limitations which are based on a historically defined, geographically limited market scope for non-networked SMEs; however, SMEs are also able to act more nimbly to fill local or specialized market and technology niche markets [15,37,38] through being less encumbered by existing organizational structures that predate sustainability as a factor in enterprise performance:
Industries that are capital-intensive, concentrated, and advertising intensive, tend to promote the innovation advantage in large firms. The small firm innovation advantage, however, tends to occur in industries in the early stages of the life cycle, where total innovation and the use of skilled labor play a large role, and where large firms comprise a high share of the market [15].
An organization‘s resilience and ability to ??integrate, build, and reconfigure
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internal and external competences to address rapidly changing environments‘‘ are critical success factors in coping with shifting markets and for responding to disruptive innovations and change [39]. Rothaermel and Hess [40] suggest that the antecedents to build these organizational capabilities can be found at the individual, organizational, and network level. At the organizational level, two major hurdles to effectively manage disruptive innovations
and change are higher in larger firms and lower in smaller firms.
3.1. Streamlined organizational processes and business models
One hurdle for larger organizations to surmount is that while they usually have adequate human capital assets and other resources, they are often caught facing the challenges of disruptive change with inappropriate and ineffective organizational processes and business models [41]. An organization‘s capacity to meet the challenges of disruptive change is affected by its resources, processes, and values. Initially, organizational resources determine the firm‘s capabilities. As the firm matures, organizational processes become well-defined, and once the firm‘s business model becomes clearly defined, organizational values are articulated. These factors – resources, processes, and values – are the building blocks of the organization‘s culture. Christensen and Overdorf [41] argue that changing a company‘s processes, business models, values, and ultimately its culture is difficult, if not impossible, for large, established companies; and yet, this is precisely what must happen in order for a firm to deal with disruptive innovations and major changes. Smaller organizations can leverage their capacities for entrepreneurial innovations and organizational change, thereby, learning to achieve advantages over larger organizations [42].
3.2. SMEs exposure to competitive forces
A second hurdle is that while larger organizations may do well initially with technological developments, their capability to ameliorate competitive constraints insulates them so that they are likely to become weaker competitors over time, compared with smaller organizations that cannot escape the rigors of technology
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survival contests [43]. When disruptive innovation and change are driven by competition contests, larger organizations tend to have significant survival and competitive advantages [43,44]. However, when a larger organization succeeds in neutralizing the constraints of competition, the organization‘s perceived invulnerability serves as insulation from critical sources of continuous organizational development. Hence, strategies that isolate organizations from competition may actually backfire, such that larger organizations become weaker competitors in the long run [43]. These implications suggest that since smaller firms cannot effectively constrain competitive forces nor shield themselves from these external forces, the organizational development processes of smaller firms may also constitute a built-in engine for addressing the challenges of disruptive innovation and change.
4. SMEs as a laboratory-sandbox for developing sustainable strategies and technologies which are then integrated into MNEs via acquisition.
SMEs have traditionally been entrepreneurial businesses that grow through internal financing. The leap to external financing or acquisition becomes necessary when growth outpaces the ability of the SME to finance that growth, or if an SME‘s technology or market segment becomes of special interest to investors [8]. Small firms can fulfill the desire to grow larger by raising capital in public markets, or they can become attractive acquisition targets for larger firms [37]. Large firms seeking investments or acquisitions in small to medium sized enterprises typically use traditional strategies to improve profitability by: ? acquiring SME technology and market share [45];
? achieving ??roll-up‘‘ efficiencies through elimination of redundant expenses [46]; ? de-fragmenting markets through consolidation of SME competitors [47].
The benefits that SMEs bring to larger firms may be otherwise unreachable by larger organizations. However, there are hurdles in seeking to integrate smaller firms into larger organizations. Roughly 50–80% of mergers and acquisitions, depending on whose research is cited, fail to deliver anticipated benefits [48]. Regardless of whether the focus of an acquisition is on the issue of strategic fit, or organizational fit, or the
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acquisition process itself, failure rates remain consistently high [49]. Two meta-analyses of empirical studies called for a ??greater recognition of the process and organizational dimensions of acquisitions‘‘ that are increasingly recognized in the behavioral literature [50,51]; for example, inappropriate decision-making, negotiation and integration processes can lead to inferior acquisition outcomes [52–54]. Additional industrial ecology criteria [5] for gauging the success of an SME acquisition should be whether the acquired SME helps an MNE reduce its degrees of unsustainability, or increases MNE capabilities to fundamentally strengthen the systemic underpinnings of sustainability [55].
Despite the risks for larger firms, being acquired is an interesting option for SMEs, financially and organizationally, since acquisition can free the founding entrepreneurs and their capital, to continu to develop new firms and to pursue other synergistic alternatives.
5. Network advantages for SMEs utilizing the effects of creative destruction and information technology
One of the apparent reasons for the increasing number of smaller firms globally is the acceleration of ??creative destruction‘‘ effects caused by rapid technology transitions within global markets [41,56]. This factor has persisted despite the breadth of advantages inherent to larger firms [31,57]. Moreover, globalization of communication technology is facilitating the formation of SME networks. These inter-organizational networks, which are strategic partnerships or alliances among SME stakeholders, introduce a new organizational form into A′ cs‘ assumptions [37], as networked SMEs can behave in the marketplace as a single larger firm, thereby achieving market penetration through synchronized competency building [58–60].
Smaller firms may also be more nimble and creative in leveraging the ??force multiplier‘‘ advantages of stakeholder networking [61]. The continuous updating of organizational learning and knowledge bases through networking is a significant way for SMEs to achieve both positional and performance advantages in the face of disruptive innovations and change. The involvement offormer and new business,
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government, and NGO collaborators creates communities of sustainable-knowledge networks similar to the open-source participation model that is ??lumpy with small groups and clustered with coalitions‘‘ [60], rather than clearly defined roles with linear reporting hierarchies [20].
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