Corporate Sustainability practices in SMEs in Colombia - A case study from the manufacturing sector to assess the gap between vision and actions

Abstract

Sustainable development has become an increasingly recognised issue worldwide. Many companies have decided to act and tackle the issues of sustainable development. In order to do so, enterprises around the world started to implement Corporate Sustainability practices inside their business strategies. This development was particularly wide in developed countries. Many studies have been conducted to assess this phenomenon in industrialised countries but not much in developing countries. Thus, the aim of the research was to evaluate the sustainability strategies of a Colombian SME and its performance in practice and explain how the social system factors contribute to the gap. So as to answer the research question, the LEAP FROCS framework was developed. The framework rests upon five dimensions: sustainability KPIs, time, organisational structure, learning and culture. A holistic approach on sustainability was used to interlink the theories of the five-dimensional framework. A single case study in a Colombian SME of the manufacturing sector was used to investigate the gap between vision and actions. The data was gathered thanks to 15 semi-structured interviews representing every level of the organisational structure and participatory observation. The creation of 30 integration items enabled to analyse how sustainability was implemented within the company: 11 were found unsuccessful, 12 slightly successful, 2 partly successful and 5 fully successful. The findings revealed that the SME had no vision or mission on sustainability. Although the company did not develop any Corporate Sustainability Strategies (CSS), the large amount of CS initiatives prove that the enterprise is really active in the area of sustainability. The social focus towards its employees and local community demonstrates its orientation towards a philanthropic approach rather than a business strategy approach. Results also show that integration items have been successfully implemented in organisational learning and structure; however, most of the integration items got stuck at the artifact or value level of the organisational culture. It was concluded that the company experienced a gap between its vision on CS initiatives and their realisation in practice. The gap was associated to the lack of communication skills of the leader and the lack of behavioural attitudes among the employees of the firm.