Corporate sustainability and enterprise performance: The mediating effects of internationalization and networks

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between economic performance in terms of labour productivity of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and their corporate sustainability in association with the driving forces of internationalization process and enterprise networks.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper develops an innovative theoretical–conceptual approach and applied unique empirical survey to investigate the simultaneous causalities between labour productivity and corporate sustainability, in the context of the set of relationships controlled with two other set of variables for mediating role of the internationalization process and enterprise networks focusing on business collaborations between SMEs. Four hypotheses are tested by the developed structural equation model for the unique in-depth survey data of Slovenian SMEs.

Findings

The results highlight significant positive correlations between the studied variables and their constructs, which indicate scientific justification to variables as factors. The results confirmed that internationalization process and enterprise networks are positively associated in improving corporate sustainability, which drives labour productivity.

Practical implications

The implications of this research are for managers regarding strategies and approaches aiming at sustainable development of SMEs, and for policy-makers regarding appropriate policies for practices encouraging internalization processes and enterprise networks as important drivers of corporate sustainability and labour productivity of SMEs.

Originality/value

The main scientific value added of this research is that combines and empirically examines driving forces of corporate sustainability in SMEs based on related studies, to develop more comprehensive structural equation model for better understanding of the corporate sustainability behaviour in SMEs.

Citation

Bojnec, Š. and Tomšič, N. (2021), "Corporate sustainability and enterprise performance: The mediating effects of internationalization and networks", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 70 No. 1, pp. 21-39. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPPM-05-2019-0226