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