Sustainability, corporate social responsibility, non-financial reporting and company performance: Relationships and mediating effects in Spanish small and medium sized enterprises

Abstract

Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and non-financial reporting and their relationships with company performance are burning topics. Although all these terms are familiar to companies, specifically large ones, most European companies are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and studies explicitly addressing SMEs are limited. For this reason, this paper aims to fill the existent gap in the literature concerning SMEs by analyzing the relationship between sustainability, CSR, non-financial information, and performance. The objective of this study is to analyze several aspects: (1) The influence of pressures, incentives, and barriers on sustainability, (2) The influence of sustainability, CSR, and non-financial disclosure on performance, and (3) The mediating effect of CSR and non-financial disclosure. For this purpose, there has been an e-mail survey to managers, financial directors, or administration managers of Spanish SMEs. In addition, a Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) model has been used on a final sample of 126 Spanish SMEs. The study's main outcome is that sustainability positively influences CSR and non-financial reporting in the case of SMEs. Therefore, regardless of the specific characteristics derived from the size of the company and the possible lack of resources, the results for SMEs align with those of large companies obtained by previous studies. This study has important academic/theoretical implications for SME managers and policymakers because implementing policies encouraging CSR practices and sustainability strategies will create a better society and positively impact SMEs' performance. © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers. This is an open access