Sustainability and Organisational Performance of South African Small and Medium Enterprises

Abstract

This study adopted the method of a qualitative integrative literature review to investigate the sustainability and organisational performance (OP) of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa (SA). The focus was on enablers to facilitate the attainment and the challenges impeding sustainability and organisational performance. Furthermore, the study examined the phases and steps to incorporate sustainability into organisational performance, as well as the approaches for achieving ecological, social, and economic sustainability within organisations. For the better understanding of the topic and to ensure that it has been consistently and sufficiently covered without missing any aspect of OP and sustainability phenomenon, the study integrated the four OP dimensions, namely financial, operational, market and growth performance, at the same time considering the environmental, social, economic, and cultural pillars of sustainability. The e-resources from the online library of the University of Witwatersrand were used for the selection of appropriate databases. The reading materials included academic articles, journals, conference papers, reports, dissertations, theses, handbooks, and books, and the collection of 5000 works of literature from the management field were transcribed and categorised in a comprehensive fashion to be assessed using content and thematic analysis. Of the 5000 reviewed literature publications, 2 947 (including SA literature) were excluded due to duplication, the size of the firms not mentioned, the incomplete (full version unavailable), outside the scope of interest of SMEs and SA SMEs, and not aligned with the research questions. The remaining 2 053 literature publications were selected for discussion and interpretation; of these 1 625 included SMEs in general and 428 SA SMEs. The comprehensive appendix of the collected literature provides validity and credibility to the findings. Ethical clearance was obtained from Wits Business School to conduct the study and all ethics were adhered to. The study implemented the theory of knowledge to conduct the literature review and contingency theory to build new theories. The findings revealed that the achievements of organisational performance and sustainability of SMEs in general, and particularly those located in South Africa, were enabled and challenged by organisational factors (OFs) or corporate factors (CFs), management factors (MFs), business factors (BFs), entrepreneurial factors (EFs), leadership factors (LFs), modernity factors (MOFs), and sustainable factors (SFs). Sustainable development (SD), sustainable development goals (SDGs), organisational changes (OC), the circular economy iv (CE), lean management (LM), sustainable corporate governance (SCG), corporate sustainable responsibility (CSR) and sustainable supply chain management (SCM), and other related sustainability practices (SPs) were implemented. Some sustainability pillars besides cultural sustainability were integrated and balanced in the OP of SMEs without mentioning the sequential sustainability implementation phases, integration steps and balance approaches. In addition, there is limited literature on sustainability and OP covering the SA context, leaving room for future research The findings of the reviewed literature were built by identifying the gaps in the literature, the construction of an integrated categorical-conceptual framework, the development of a contextual framework, developing novel theories, and business model designs including successful sustainable SMEs’ business performance. Furthermore, most of the reviewed literature was quantitative, therefore, future studies should consider using other research approaches. Further analysis revealed little to no mention of cultural sustainability. Although there is literature covering sustainability in SA SMEs, and OP of SA SMEs, it remains limited. Likewise, there is limited literature covering the implementation of sustainability in OP, as well as sustainability integration into OP, moreover, no published research could be found that covered the approaches to sustainability balance in SA SMEs. The analysis of all the literature reviewed for this study revealed steps to guide sustainability implementation and integration into OP as well as suggesting approaches for balancing sustainability in OP