Turning sustainability into action: Explaining firms' sustainability efforts and their impact on firm performance

Impact of Competitive Capabilities on Sustainable Manufacturing Applications in Romanian SMEs from the Textile Industry

“…In the same vein, previous research also found environmental regulations hardly play any role in regulating SMEs, such as Hamann et al's [34] study on wine-producing SMEs in South Africa. With regard to the impact of stakeholder's environmental pressures on SMP, the finding is in harmony with other researchers [32] who emphasised the significant impact of customers, suppliers, media and other stakeholders on implementing SMP. One may argue that many SMEs are subcontractors to large firms, so they are not under direct stakeholder pressures to adopt SMP.…”

“…Researchers have also highlighted the contribution of environmental pressures that are brought about by the power of customers, media, competitors, suppliers, investors, and non-governmental organizations, etc., that affect an organisation's decisions to implement sustainability initiatives. Schrettle et al [32] considered environmental pressures as exogenous factors that influence organisations' sustainability practices beside local and international environmental regulations. Mittal and Sangwan [29] revealed that environmental pressures are ranked second by experts in terms of their influence on sustainable manufacturing.…”

Embending Sustainability Dynamics in the Lean Construction Supply Chain Management

“…Similarly, knowledge capacities have to be aligned throughout the SC according to changing market requirements. [62] (p. 82). "…for a … future oriented sustainable supply management, the ability for development in the supply chain based on collective learning processes is the decisive factor in creating win-win situations for both partners."…”

“…A sustainability move relies on the adoption of new manufacturing technologies, and of sustainable products as well as on the integration of sustainability practices into the supply chain [62] (p. 73).…”

“…These barriers might include: suppliers' lack of technical know-how to comply with sustainability requirements [8]; suppliers' lack the financial means to invest in green initiatives [8]; enforcing unreasonable contracts on small suppliers obstacling their stay in business [8] (p. 139); risks arising due to the implementation of sustainable procurement [64], [33] (p. 207); conflicts among companies in the same SC upon launching new sustainability-oriented activities [7] (p. 549); the consumers' unwillingness/reluctance-to-pay for sustainability efforts [65], [66], [62] (p. 74); high initial buyer and supplier investment costs associated with adapting SSM [34] (p. 267); cost issues and economic uncertainty." [34] (p. 267); rising transaction costs due to embedding environmental standards in the purchasing criteria [46], [44] and the difficulty in developing and managing environmental specifications [44], [46]; suppliers' reluctance in environmental upgrading due to fuziness in the sufficient business rationale for investing in environmental upgrading."…”