Linking environmental scanning and organizational innovation with competitive advantage: evidence from Egyptian SMEs

Abstract

PurposeCOVID-19 and its economic consequences have provoked critical views on worldwide sustainable management, especially in the Arab world. Post-COVID-19, sustainability becomes important because the pandemic taught humanity to set aside differences and work together to support the global sustainability agenda. On the organizational level, sustaining an organization's competitive advantage is a key to surviving a crisis. Therefore, this study explores the impact of environmental scanning on sustaining Egyptian manufacturing SMEs' competitive advantage through organizational innovation.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts a cross-sectional design to collect data. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 249 Egyptian SMEs. The smart partial least square structural equation modeling technique (PLS-SEM) was employed to test hypotheses.FindingsOrganizational innovation has an effect on competitive advantage. There is no direct effect of environmental scanning on competitive advantage. However, organizational innovation fully mediates the relationship between environmental scanning and competitive advantage.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample size was small, covering only Egyptian manufacturing SMEs. The results may differ in the service sector and in other countries. The study was cross-sectional and could not trace long-term effects of environmental scanning and organizational innovation on competitive advantage.Practical implicationsIn the face of crises, Egyptian SMEs' managers should regularly scan their environments to build organizational innovation and in turn sustain their competitive position.Originality/valueThis study is amongst the first to investigate the role played by environmental scanning in sustaining Egyptian SMEs competitive advantage through the mediation of organizational innovation amidst the COVID-19 epidemic.

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Psychological time of green entrepreneurs: a mixed methods study of SMEs

“…The attempts to understand why entrepreneurs choose (or do not choose) to engage in green business are mainly examined through the lens of external factors, such as state (legislative) support (Liargovas et al ., 2017; Quartey and Miskolci, 2017), regulatory pressure (Bernal et al ., 2022), financing (Bergset, 2018; Bobkova et al ., 2020; Kraus et al ., 2018; Prędkiewicz and Kalinowska-Beszczyńska, 2021), marketing (Ismail, 2022), innovation (Frare and Beuren, 2021; Gasbarro et al ., 2018; Hu et al ., 2021; Martin et al ., 2019; Prince et al ., 2021; Quartey and Miskolci, 2017; YahiaMarzouk and Jin, 2022), technologies (Oke, 2022), regional specifics (Demirel et al ., 2019), stages of organizational development (Bernal et al ., 2022) and business education (Bergset, 2018). Hence, the internal (psychological) factors of green entrepreneurship have largely been understudied.…”

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“…Therefore, organizations must focus on innovation to improve performance and sustain their competitive advantage (Farida & Setiawan, 2022). Since the available products and services face vulnerability due to abrupt market changes, manufacturing organizations focus on innovation to cater to customers' needs in a better way (Ahmad et al, 2022;Yahia-Marzouk& Jin, 2022). Organizations and countries with continuous innovativeness are ahead of those who do not invest resources in research and development.…”