Socially responsible business and ethical behaviour of companies have been of interest to academia and practice for decades. But the focus has almost exclusively been on large corporations while small-and medium-sized enterprises (SME) have not received as much attention. Thus, this paper focuses on socially responsible business practices of SME entrepreneurs or owner-managers in Germany. Based on the assumption that decision-makers in SMEs are the central point where all business activities start, members of a German entrepreneurs association were approached in the course of a qualitative and quantitative survey. They were asked to assess in what way their social responsibility is expressed in specific management practices towards selected stakeholder groups. These practices in turn were assumed to result in perceived positive reactions of the respective stakeholders and subsequently to positively influence the firm's financial performance, i.e. cost reductions and increase in profits. In the paper, a research model is presented that elaborates the relationship between an SME executive's social responsibility and the value creation of a firm, i.e. whether (personal) values create (economic) value. It was found that socially responsible management practices towards employees, customers and to a lesser extent society have a positive impact on the firm and its performance. As such, values can create additional value.

In management literature, practical wisdom is increasingly perceived as a necessary resource for excellence in judgment. However, so far, little effort has been devoted to provide substantive guidance on how to apply practical wisdom into day-today managerial decision-making processes. In order to close this gap, we develop an itembased guideline for self-guided decision-making, which explores the specific aspects a practically wise decision-making process inherently entails. To do so, we introduce the concept of practical wisdom, highlight its recent adaptions in management, and draw a link to self-guided decision-making. Then, we explain our methodological framework and procedure. Based on these initial considerations, we develop the particular items by transdisciplinary unfolding and synthesizing the main dimensions and features of practical wisdom. Finally, we discuss suggestions of application, theoretical implications, limitations, and propose avenues for further research.

Implementing sustainable policies in supply chains is a significant challenge for businesses. Recent evidence has shown that failure to manage supply chains responsibly can have significant impacts on firms' reputation and financial performance. In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework, which focuses on organizational learning, and outline specific channels through which firms can generate learning processes and build appropriate capabilities to successfully implement social and environmental supply chain policies. Drawing on 57 in‐depth interviews from a cross‐sectional sample of seven UK and nine German companies, we empirically assess our conceptual framework in accordance with a grounded, in‐depth case study analysis approach. We find compelling evidence to suggest that organizational learning is an important factor for a successful implementation of sustainable supply chain management. Organizational learning is often established as a result of training, knowledge acquisition, stakeholder engagement and collaboration between intra‐organizational and inter‐organizational partners, including suppliers and NGOs. Nonetheless, our results also emphasize that firms often have few systematic processes through which organizational learning is developed, and that such learning processes are often ad hoc at best, which in turn has significant implications for the responsible supply chain practices. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

stakeholder dialog, sustainability reporting, corporate social responsibility, international study,

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