Justifying environmental sustainability in small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises: An analysis of complementary assets in the printing industry
基于丹麦印刷业中小企业的多案例研究，运用资源基础观和创新价值捕获框架，识别并描述中小企业利用互补资产实现环境管理实践竞争优势的机制，论证其战略参与环境管理的正当性。
Abstract Contrary to large enterprises, the environmental impact from small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) has not, to the same extent, attracted stakeholder attention and engagement. A similar lack of attention seems to have dominated management scholars who seem to have predominantly focused on the competitive implications of environmental sustainability of large enterprises. To fill up some of that gap, this study draws on the resource‐based view of the firm and the innovation‐value‐capturing‐framework to identify and characterise complementary assets utilised to materialise the competitive advantage of environmental management practices (EMP) in SMEs. Based on a multifirm case study among Danish SMEs in the printing and graphic industry, we demonstrate why and how SMEs' strategic involvement in EMP can be justified. This research complements existing insights in the field by exposing how SMEs operating under conditions of weak appropriability can justify investment in EMP thus highlighting their role in pursuing corporate sustainability.