Transformations  in
Business & Economics

DIGITALISED AND SUSTAINABLE? HIGH IMPACT GENERATION PATHWAYS AND MOSTLY ADOPTED PRACTICES AND POLICIES OF CBCS SMES OF THE IT SECTOR
Alberto Ruozzi Lopez, Carmen Paradinas Marquez, Jose Antonio Vicente Pascual

ABSTRACT: The generation of impacts of SMEs and IT firms is increasingly relevant, nonetheless, there is scarce evidence about them, also due to difficulties in measuring their focus on impact dimensions and the practices and policies they adopt in a way that facilitates comparison. To explore this, the B Corp database is used with the aim of identifying: a) what the configurations of focus on the impact dimensions of employees, customers, communities, governance, and the environment lead SMEs of the IT sector certified as B Corps (CBCs) that are sufficient for those firms to generate high impacts; b) the practices and policies most significantly most adopted in every dimension across the firms exhibiting the configurations. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis with a sample of 198 SMEs CBCs of the IT sector six configurations of focus on impact dimensions that led them to obtain high impact scores are identified. The mean difference t-test is also used to identify sixteen practices in every dimension most significantly adopted by the firms with high impact. The heterogeneity of configurations and practices and policies significantly more adopted is coherent with the natural-resource-based view and stakeholder theories, pointing to the need for SMEs to identify synergistic effects resulting from the simultaneous focus on various impact dimensions in a way coherent with their resources and capabilities and their stakeholders’ demands. The findings complement previous empirical evidence about the sustainable behaviours of SMEs, IT firms, and CBCs.

KEYWORDS:  IT sector, Certified Benefit Corporations, impact generation, digitalisation, sustainability, small-medium sized enterprises.

JEL classification:  M14, M15, M13, O32, C35.