Theoretical Framework and Hypothesis Development
From the literature it is evident that although the term corporate
sustainability is not very familiar among the SMEs, concept wise
understanding of CSR or sustainability does exist among them. In general
SMEs consider sustainability as a means to maintain a balance of social,
economic and environmental demands and also to respond to the
stakeholders’ expectations to reduce social or environmental impact of
their business operations and build competencies for creating positive
impact on society and environment (Linh, 2011). SME managers who
consider CSR as a business opportunity can better balance their
commitment to sustainability without compromising their economic
performance, than those who consider CSR as a cost burden (Martina and
Martin 2011).
In order to develop a framework for business performance through
sustainable practices we first define different measures and constructs
used in our proposed model and subsequently derive their interrelations
to develop research hypothesis with evidences from existing literature
Measures