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Cultural Antecedents of Sustainability and Regional Economic Development - A Study of SME ‘Mittelstand’ Firms in Baden-Württemberg (Germany)
Kraus, Patrick Stokes, Peter Cooper, Cary Liu, Yipeng Moore, Neil Britzelmaier, Bernd Tarba, Shlomo Y.
Kraus, Patrick
Stokes, Peter
Cooper, Cary
Liu, Yipeng
Moore, Neil
Britzelmaier, Bernd
Tarba, Shlomo Y.
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Publication Date
2020-01-20
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Abstract
This paper examines behavioural and regional/geographic cultural antecedents of sustainability in SME contexts. The study identifies prevailing macro-representations of sustainability in the literature and highlights an over-focus on large firms constituting the predominant unit of analysis. Moreover, there is a propensity in the literature to view sustainability primarily in terms of ‘environmental’ – closely linked to a corporate strategic imperative narrative of economic competitiveness and profitability. Overall, this perspective tends to generate accounts which are acultural, apolitical and ahistorical in terms of innovative actions and sustainability practices. In response, using a conceptual framework of moral identity, the paper develops a more micro-foundational insight to sustainability (developing notions of ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible’) and examines regional economic development attitudes at individual owner-manager/ managing director level in small-to-medium-sized firms.
Methodologically, an inductively framed interview schedule was employed with owner-managers and managing directors (n = 30) of manufacturing SMEs in the Baden-Württemberg region (Germany). The study identified a range of micro-foundational behavioural antecedents operating in the sample companies. In particular, it underlined that many of the SME owner-managers/managing directors expressed views informed by a particular moral identity connected with a perspective rooted in regionally bound, longstanding and ‘expected’ behaviours of trust, fairness, honesty and community responsibility.
Citation
Kraus, P., Stokes, P., Cooper, C., Liu, Y., Moore, N., Britzelmaier, B., & Tarba, S. Y. (2020). Cultural antecedents of sustainability and regional economic development - A study of SME ‘Mittelstand’ Firms in Baden-Württemberg (Germany). Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 32(7-8), 629-653. https://doi.org/10.1080/08985626.2020.1713223
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Journal
Entrepreneurship & Regional Development
Research Unit
DOI
10.1080/08985626.2020.1713223
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PubMed Central ID
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Article
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Description
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Entrepreneurship and Regional Development on 20/01/2020, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/08985626.2020.1713223
Series/Report no.
ISSN
0898-5626