Sustainable business models of enterprises - actual and declared activities for ensuring corporate sustainability

Abstract

Abstract Entrepreneurs perceive and build sustainable business models in different ways. The actual and declared entrepreneurs’ attitudes and actions towards sustainable business models differ. The aim of the study was to determine whether the declarations of enterprises referring sustainable business models are coherent with actions they have taken to build sustainable business models. The basis of the study was data collected during focus interviews conducted in 2019 among business owners or their financial directors. The survey involved 60 respondents representing enterprises, including 34 referred to as micro and small enterprises, 17 medium enterprises, and 9 large enterprises. The study used the development pattern method described by Z. Hellwig. As a result of the study, four typological groups of enterprises were obtained, the first being the best and closest benchmark, and the fourth being the worst and the most distant from the benchmark. As a result of the study, it was confirmed that enterprises that declare a sustainable business model are more likely to undertake social and environmental activities than enterprises that delineate that they do not implement such a model. However, this is not a general conclusion, because in the fourth typological group, in which sustainability activities were sporadically identified, no enterprises declared a sustainable business model, and vice versa, in the first typological group, one company declared that they did not have a sustainable business model.