The policies and green practices of Malaysian SMEs

Abstract

The interest on environmental management has been increasing significantly in the last few years and now is considered to be a mainstream challenge for organizations. Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) can be of particular significant on green concept as their total impact towards environmental degradation is huge. With increasing awareness of environmental issues, there has been rising demand for environmental friendly business practices. The key focus of this study is to explore and link SME owner/managers perception and attitude through the examination of the inter-relationship between awareness of environment impact, attitude towards environmental issues and environmental practice adoption. Result based on survey data from 148 manufacturing SMEs indicate that there is a positive correlation between owner/managers perception, concern, effort and impact on SME green practices. The finding is consistent with the environmental management literature mostly published in the developed countries. This study is important as the empirical evidence result provide an indicator to encourage other SMEs which has no green practices in place to consider joining the green bandwagon. Since the green agenda in Malaysia is at the infancy stage, this study able to furnish empirical evidence on SMEs performance appears to be critical at this juncture noting the fact that SMEs contributes to the largest business establishment in Malaysia.