The purpose of this paper is to identify the role intermediaries can play in an SME's pursuit for corporate sustainability with a focus on eco-efficiency innovation. The research identifies drivers and barriers for eco-efficiency innovation, and highlights effects induced through collaboration between SMEs and local authorities, on the one hand, and consultancies, on the other. Design/methodology/approach: This paper is based on an exploratory qualitative interview study among German SMEs of the metal and mechanical engineering industry that have participated in "Ecoprofit", an intermediary based program that aims at introducing organizations to the concept of sustainable development through implementation of eco-efficiency innovations. Findings: Our key findings are that first, the proactive approach by a public intermediary (here local authority) is one essential push factor to trigger eco-efficiency innovations in SMEs with low absorptive capacity. Second, we find that SMEs may need facilitation for eco-efficiency innovation from different types of intermediaries (public and private) with different levels of support, which can range from customized and individual to more loosely held support, such as networks. Originality/value: Our study discusses the challenges of corporate sustainability with a focus on ecoefficiency innovations for SMEs and proposes a 'complex intermediary' consisting of a local authority and consultancies as one means to engage SMEs in sustainability. Moreover, it focuses on SMEs in the B2B context, organizations that are often overlooked despite their vast impact. Furthermore, by using a single industry approach, in-depth findings for the metal and mechanical engineering industry are presented.

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This article develops a Hayekian perspective on social franchising that distinguishes between the end-connected logic of the small group and the rule-connected logic of the big group. Our key claim is that mission-driven social entrepreneurs often draw on the small-group logic when starting their social ventures and then face difficulties when the process of scaling shifts their operations toward a big-group logic. In this situation, social franchising offers a strategy to replicate the small group despite systemwide scaling, to mobilize decentrally accessible social capital, and to reduce agency costs through mechanisms of self-selection and self-monitoring. By employing a Hayekian perspective, we are thus able to offer an explanation as to why social franchising is a suitable scaling strategy for some social entrepreneurship organizations and not for others. We illustrate our work using the Ashoka Fellow Wellcome.