Title: Social sustainability practices by small to medium-sized enterprises in developing countries: a systematic review

Authors: Omar Abi-Farraj; Andreas Efstathiades; George Papageorgiou

Addresses: Department of Management/Marketing, European University Cyprus, 6 Diogenous Street, 2404 Engomi, Nicosia, Cyprus ' Department of Management/Marketing, European University Cyprus, 6 Diogenous Street, 2404 Engomi, Nicosia, Cyprus ' SYSTEMA Research Centre, Department of Management/Marketing, School of Business Administration, European University Cyprus, 6 Diogenous Street, 2404 Engomi Nicosia, Cyprus

Abstract: This paper consolidates the works of the latest most prominent studies on social sustainability practice and its relationship to performance for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries. For this purpose, a systematic literature review was conducted, supported by the 'preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses' (PRISMA) methodology. As a result, 79 relevant eligible publications were selected and critically evaluated. The review revealed a focused emphasis on five main themes, namely practices, drivers, barriers, competitive advantage and outcomes. Accordingly, a thematic classification of the extracted data was conducted, which is one of the main contributions of this paper. The comprehensive classification of the selected studies allowed for deriving important conclusions regarding the relationships among the main themes and identifying possible gaps in the literature. Specifically, it was found that there are contradicting results about the relationship between social sustainability practice and business performance. These findings calls for the creation of new comprehensive theoretical models to more accurately describe how social sustainability practice affects performance.

Keywords: social sustainability; social practices; performance outcomes; sustainable supply chain management; SSCM; small to medium-sized enterprises; SMEs; developing countries; competitive advantage.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBPSCM.2022.128132

International Journal of Business Performance and Supply Chain Modelling, 2022 Vol.13 No.4, pp.450 - 475

Received: 28 Jun 2021
Accepted: 27 Jan 2022
Published online: 06 Jan 2023 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article