Environmental regulatory stringency and corporate reporting quality: Evidence from waste, emissions, water, and energy regulations in Vietnamese firms

The purpose of this research is to empirically reveal the effect of external technology R&D cooperation network diversity (ETRDCND) on the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction and energy saving of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Besides this, this study aims at analyzing the roles of production time reduction and absorptive capacity in the relationship between SMEs’ ETRDCND and their GHG emission reduction and energy saving. GHG emission and energy usage have been playing a crucial role in aggravating global warming. Global warming results in big problems such as worldwide unusual weather and health disorders. SMEs play a substantial role in the industrial growth of the global economy, which increases GHG emission and energy consumption. By performing the ordinary least squares regression with the data of 3300 South Korean SMEs, this research reveals four points. First, ETRDCND positively influences SMEs’ GHG emission reduction and energy saving. Second, production time reduction perfectly mediates the relationship between SMEs’ ETRDCND and their GHG emission reduction and energy saving. Third, the mediating role of production time reduction in this relationship is moderated by SMEs’ absorptive capacity. Fourth, ETRDCND significantly influences SMEs’ GHG emission reduction and their energy saving only if SMEs possess their own absorptive capacity.

Determinants of corporate environmental reporting: the importance of environmental performance and assurance

This paper explores the implementation of carbon accounting frameworks within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the United States, examining its potential to drive sustainable finance and enhance global competitiveness. Given the rising regulatory pressures and market demands for transparent environmental practices, carbon accounting provides SMEs a structured approach to measure, manage, and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Through a comprehensive analysis, we identify the primary challenges SMEs face in adopting carbon accounting, including limited financial resources, lack of technical expertise, and unclear reporting standards. The study also evaluates the potential benefits, such as improved access to green financing, heightened operational efficiency, and stronger market positioning through alignment with sustainability goals. We propose a framework that prioritizes simplicity and cost-effectiveness, enabling U.S. SMEs to initiate carbon accounting practices with available resources and existing capabilities. Furthermore, we highlight the role of policy support, technological advancements, and industry collaborations in facilitating widespread adoption. Ultimately, this paper underscores the significance of carbon accounting as a strategic tool, equipping U.S. SMEs with the transparency and accountability needed to thrive in an evolving global marketplace that increasingly values sustainability. Keywords: Carbon Accounting, Sustainable Finance, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Global Competitiveness.

<p>Innovation has been regarded as one of important impetuses to gain competitive advantages and achieve sustainable development for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the past thirty years. However, SMEs in China have currently confronted a lot of problems impairing their innovation performance. This study aims to identify the main challenges hindering successful innovation of Chinese SMEs. Based on the previous academic studies, there are five research variables are developed and evaluated: lack of financial support, inadequate research and development (R&D) activities, the shortage of technical and skilled employees, weak entrepreneur orientation, improper governmental and legal environment. Furthermore, the primary data are collected by structured-questionnaires from 120 SMEs in Beijing. According to the research results analyzed by SPSS, it reveals that lack of financial support and inadequate R&D activities are major challenges for Chinese SMEs to achieve innovation. The shortage of technical and skilled employees as well as the improper governmental and legal environment is other barrier. Therefore, more responsibilities and actions should be taken by the government and SMEs themselves to enhance the innovation capability of Chinese SMEs. On the other hand, only one factor—weak entrepreneur orientation, is not regarded as a key challenge. This indicates Chinese entrepreneurs have increasingly realized the significant role of innovation played in the survival and long-term prosperity of SMEs recently.</p>

Numerous studies in the world of market economy show that the share of small and medium size enterprises is constantly increasing compared to large enterprises. This does not decrease the significance of large enterprises, but the dependence between them gets larger every day. National economies which manage to find the optimal combination between small, medium size and large enterprises are more successful than the others. Management of small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in conceptual terms is similar to the process of management of large enterprises. An organization must be managed in order to function and this rule applies to small and medium size enterprises.

Aim/Purpose: This study investigated factors influencing the intention to engage in green innovation among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the tourism sector, using an integrated approach from the pro-environmental planned behavior (PEPB) and technology organization environment (TOE) models. Background: Green innovation is a long-term strategy aimed at addressing environmental challenges in the Indonesian tourism sector, especially those related to SMEs in culinary, accommodation, transportation, and creative industries. While prior research primarily focused on innovation characteristics and various behavioral intentions towards new technologies, this study pioneered an approach to understanding green innovation practices among SMEs by examining behavioral intention and the influence of internal organizational and external environmental factors. This was achieved through the PEPB model, which extends the theory of planned behavior (TPB) by incorporating perceived authority support and perceived environmental concern and integrating it with the TOE model. This comprehensive approach was crucial for understanding SME motivations, needs, and challenges in adopting green innovation, thereby supporting environmental sustainability. Methodology: Data were collected through offline and online questionnaires and interviews with 405 SMEs that had implemented green innovation as respondents. The theoretical model was tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with top-level constructs. Contribution: This research contributed to the development and validation of an integrated model for green innovation in SMEs, offering insights and recommendations for all stakeholders in the tourism sector to formulate effective green innovation strategies. Findings: This research revealed that the integrated model of pro-environmental planned behavior and technology organization environment successfully explained 71% of the factors influencing the intention to engage in green innovation for SMEs in the tourism sector. Perceived authority support emerged as the strongest factor, while perceived behavioral control was identified as a weaker factor. Recommendations for Practitioners: The research findings recommended that SMEs in the tourism sector focus on customer satisfaction and operational efficiency and optimize the recruitment and training processes of resources to maximize success in adopting environmentally friendly innovations. Meanwhile, for the government, providing support, incentives, and stringent environmental regulations could encourage sustainable business practices. Recommendation for Researchers: The research findings recommended that SMEs in the tourism sector focus on customer satisfaction and operational efficiency and optimize the recruitment and training processes of resources to maximize success in adopting environmentally friendly innovations. Meanwhile, for the government, providing support, incentives, and stringent environmental regulations could encourage sustainable business practices. Impact on Society: Examining the factors influencing the intention to engage in green innovation among SMEs in the tourism sector carried significant social implications. The findings contributed to recommending strategies for businesses and stakeholders such as the government, investors, and tourists to collectively strive to minimize environmental damage in tourist areas through the implementation of green innovation. Future Research: There are several promising avenues to explore to enhance future research. Expanding the scope to include diverse regions and industries and using additional approaches, such as leadership theory and management commitment theories, can increase the R-squared value. Additionally, broadening the profile of interviewees to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the intention to engage in green innovation should be considered.

The establishment of Hainan Free Trade Port provides a new opportunity for the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises. In the process of the country continuously promoting the development of a free trade port, the financing environment of small and medium-sized enterprises has gradually improved, and the financing environment has been greatly improved. But the small and medium-sized enterprises “financing difficult” “financing expensive” problem still exists. The problems of difficult and expensive financing of small and medium-sized enterprises in Haikou city have their reasons as well as the influence of external environmental factors. Therefore, to better solve the financing problems of small and medium-sized enterprises in Haikou, this paper analyzes the reasons for the difficulty and expensive financing of small and medium-sized enterprises according to the existing research results and summarizes the financing experience of small and medium-sized enterprises at home and abroad. This article finds that the financing systems for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developed countries are relatively well-established, and both the government and society offer significant support to SMEs. Therefore, this paper believes that the government should adjust the business strategy to improve the financing ecological environment and enhance the financing ability of SMEs. The government should take the lead in perfecting the guarantee system, continuously improving the credit information system of enterprises and various financial service institutions, promoting the opening and institutionalization of private credit, and developing Internet finance.

Purpose – The basic purpose of this paper is to analyze the debt financing of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan through different modes from conventional and non-conventional (Islamic) institutes.
 Design/Methodology/Approach – Data is publicly available on databases and websites about debt financing of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of Pakistan, thus data is collected from these databases and websites in the form of articles and handbooks about Pakistan.
 Findings – It is found from the analysis that a lot of financing choices and modes are available for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan. These modes are provided by both conventional and non-conventional (Islamic) financial institutes. All the debt modes are discussed in the paper. In addition, there are some drawbacks of debt financing that arises from conventional and non-conventional (Islamic) financial institutes, which alleviate small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from adopting these modes
 Research Limitations/Implications – Some financial institutes, especially banks, lack knowledge and information about small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan. Banks could lessen it by acting as a mediator for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
 Originality/Value – This review paper's main contribution is to analyze the contribution of financial institutes in debt financing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan. Paper discusses all the modes available for the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan thoroughly through conventional and non-conventional (Islamic) financial institutes.

Involvement and development of the private sector in boosting the economy nationwide is a main objective of the current program of the government, which means that a good cooperation between small and medium companies, private companies and multinationals and public environment including both public institutions and policies implemented and developed by them, becomes more than necessary. The paper summarizes the findings of a quantitative research based on a self-applied questionnaire which was aimed at Romanian small and medium-sized enterprises and also of a qualitative research that gives an overview of the process of elaborating and implementing a public policy. The involvement of small and medium-sized enterprises in the process of designing and implementing a public policy can become indispensable but it is well know that there is, in fact, a lack of initiative at this level, from both parties. One of the main research questions of this paper is to find out how much do representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises get involved in the process of elaborating a public policy and how much do these actions and measures impact the organizational policies of the companies themselves. A good cooperation between the business environment and the public institutions and a strong correlation of their joint efforts, should become a common practice between both parties, being crucial that this form of cooperation to be initiated from the very beginning. The contribution of this paper is a practical one, given the fact that the paper itself entails the direct responses of small and medium-sized enterprises on the current and future public policies that directly targets them, providing as well an analysis on the effects of public policies on small and medium-sized enterprises. Thus being said, the paper can also be a guide for both small and medium-sized enterprises in providing examples and measures of involvement and favorable public policies development, but also for public institutions by analyzing responses based on practice activities of small and medium-sized enterprises; giving them a solution to correct or continue generating positive results of those policies.

This paper presents an abstract of the final phase of an on-going research project aiming at investigating the antecedents and consequences of research and innovating within Lebanese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The role of training personnel and introducing supporting activities in moderating the relationship between R & D and introducing knowledge management systems within Lebanese small- medium –sized innovation in Lebanon still suffer from funding shortages, short of IT personnel training and lack of the ability to adequately use existing knowledge. Ashrafi, and Murtaza suggest that “Large organizations have enough resources to adopt ICT while on the other hand SMEs have limited financial and human resources to adopt ICT” (Ashrafi and Murtaza, 2008 P. 126). Even though, Lebanese government is trying to create a digital economy, Lebanon ranked 94th out of 144 countries on the Network Readiness Index in 2012 and “In the Arab world, Lebanon ranked in 10th position, right behind Morocco (89t...

Sustainable supplier selection for SMEs based on an extended PROMETHEE Ⅱ approach

The concept of national and regional development strategies for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are studied for a long time, as small and medium businesses are the foundation of the economy and the basis for effective country functioning. The business development program of the European Union countries is particularly interesting because there are several levels that correspond to each other and give full effect on the SMEs development. The EU standards are higher than in non-EU countries; therefore, it is worth considering legislative documents, as well as statistics showing the indicators of openness and access to the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The complexity and comparative novelty of studying such a problem in Ukraine led to the need to explore sources of information in the original language due to the lack of information in Ukrainian or Russian. All these suggest that the problem of creating strategies at the national and regional level is more relevant and important to study in the West that demonstrates the current state. The subject of the study is to analyse the effectiveness of implementing strategies for the development of small and medium-sized enterprises as well as the impact of national and regional policies on their functioning and development in the European Union countries. Methodology. The authors highlighted the peculiarities and main features of the development strategies implementation for small and medium-sized enterprises in the EU countries through a comparative analysis of the legislative framework, statistical and other data that help assess the performance and effectiveness of the implemented strategies. The content analysis helps to identify peculiarities of the implemented strategies in quantitative and qualitative forms. The thorough analysis using the above-mentioned methods allowed doing a qualitative study of national and regional strategies in the context of the development of small and medium-sized businesses in the EU countries. Practical importance is that the results of this study will lead to a wider acquaintance with progressive strategic methods of management of small and medium-sized enterprises. This will enable the plan development of concrete actions to improve the efficiency of enterprise management in less developed countries. In turn, raising awareness on this issue will reduce the number of inefficient and non-innovative enterprises. Scientific novelty of the article is to determine the theoretical basis of the differences that at the current development stage are increasingly manifested as certain contradictions in the compilation and improvement of small and medium-sized enterprises, development of strategies at the national and regional levels. Small and medium-sized enterprises, in their turn, have a wider access to their development. Conclusions. As a result of the main development strategies of small and medium-sized enterprises of the EU countries, there should be identified the differences and common features of different strategies for innovations of small and medium-sized enterprises. The interaction of the national and regional strategy with actual results and existing strategies is explored.

This study reports on the motivators and barriers for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to adopt energy savings measures. Our results are based on an empirical analysis of the performance of 289 SMEs that participated in a government run business sustainability program in Australia, the ClimateSmart Business Cluster Program, initiated in 2009. While most of the existing literature suggests that a lack of capital is an important barrier to the adoption of energy efficiency measures by SMEs, our results reveal that barriers are often highly idiosyncratic to each SME and mostly related to the individual resource endowment of the business. Barriers identified in our study fall into 24 categories and include internal challenges such as no immediate return of investment, a lack of management support, staff and knowledge, or limits to the ability to implement changes within the business. Important motivating factors for the participating businesses were primarily financial and compliance-driven objectives. The design and implementation of any sustainability program will therefore require a management of barriers within the scope of SMEs and the assistance of knowledge of the motivating factors. We discuss recommendations and implications for policy-makers regarding the design of meaningful SME programs and compliance objectives and outline pathways for future research.

Expanding Partnerships for Small‐ and Medium‐Sized Enterprises (SMEs) Needed: The Right Kind of Support

This paper examines the effects of bank loan constraints on the use of trade credit by Vietnamese firms across size with a comparison between large firms and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We distinguish three types of bank-constrained firms, i.e. credit denied firms, discouraged firms and those with pending applications; and four types of discouraged firms, i.e. those that did not apply for a bank loan because of burdensome loan procedures, strict collateral requirements, high interest rates and expected denial. Using a sample of 1,000 Vietnamese firms from the World Bank Enterprise Survey in 2005, we find that denied large firms use more trade credit by 5.2% whereas denied SMEs use less of it by 6.7%, implying a substitution and complementary effect respectively. Furthermore, our results suggest that discouraged SMEs because of high interest rates use more trade credit whereas discouraged firms because of expected denial use less of it.