Adaptability of SMEs Owners’/Managers’ Environmental Attitude and Values

Abstract

In the quest for a sustainable society, green management has taken the forefront. Nevertheless, manufacturing small–medium enterprises (SMEs) have on the whole fallen behind in attempts to reduce environmental impact and have been noted to face particular challenges in undertaking and implementing environmental improvements in their operations. Furthermore, the global burden of sustainable green practices had begun to tilt sharply toward the developing countries such as Malaysia, and this will be a significant challenge to meet the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. For this reason, the aim of this study encompasses owners’/managers’ environmental attitude and personal values toward sustainable green practices in Malaysian manufacturing SMEs. Furthermore, to fulfill this gap, this study was conducted to examine the interrelationship between owners’/managers’ environmental attitude and personal values on sustainable green practices and to understand what motivates SMEs owners/managers to improve their environmental performance and explore the challenges faced in the SMEs. Administrative questionnaires were used to collect data from 260 manufacturing SMEs. Results indicated that environmental attitude has a significant positive effect on the firm’s sustainable green practices, but such effects were not shown by environmental values. It offers a generalized sustainable green practices implementation linking SMEs owners/managers with the integration of Sustainable Development Goals 9 and 12.