Conclusion and Future Research Scope
For big organizations violation of human rights, environmental laws or social norms will not allow corporations run any longer. But for SMEs there is lack of transparency in their business operations and therefore the problem is more intense. For example, labour law violation is a major problem in the garment industry of India and Bangladesh. Practices of child labor or unpaid overtime are rampant. Moreover in some of the most polluting industries like leather, dye and other chemical manufacturing SME presence is significant. Laws have been passed to curb the negative impact of SME business operations on environment and society. But SME managers need to understand the importance of responsible business behavior. Running their business operation in a socially and environmentally responsible way may push their profit maximization goal to a back seat in the short run, in the long run this proves beneficial to the company for maintaining a sustainable business growth.
Due to time and resource constraint we had to work with a limited sample consisting of a small set of SME firms located in and around Kolkata, a city in the eastern region of the country. Thus the result might show a geographical bias. Moreover for collaborative approach we have only considered collaborations at national level. In Asian countries the internationalization effort in SMEs is restricted to exporting only. Effort should be made to promote the SME sector to equip them to better meet the challenges of globalization and to benefit from the opportunities it offer. Facilitation of trade, intellectual property protection, improved infrastructure are precursors for entering foreign market. In emerging economies, these often act as major hindrance to participate in global value chain and seize global opportunities. Thus how different forms of international market entry and development, like foreign direct investment, strategic alliances, licensing, subcontracting, franchise arrangements and joint ventures can help the Indian MSME sector to grow in a more sustainable way can be empirically verified.
Sustainability needs to be viewed not in terms of sustainability of individual firm but more broadly in terms of having a sustainable resilient SME business population (Gray and Jones, 2016). Accurate knowledge on how various components of SME business are dynamically interacting with broader socio-economic environment is extremely important for both SME management and government in order to have effective policy formulation and implementation.
India stands apart from developed western economies both economically and culturally. Thus mere replication of strategies and policies may not be feasible or effective in Indian scenario. There is a need for targeted policy interventions, supported by empirical evidence, to stimulate MSMEs growth and harness their potential to be the engines of economic growth for the country.