When Women Speak up : Sustainability Engagement under A Gender Perspective: An Example of SMEs in Gotland

The relationship between Gender Equality (GE) and Sustainability has been analysed for many years, with plenty of studies choosing the angle of the businesses environment to cut in. In addition, SMEs, as the predominant form of enterprise worldwide, are the primary source of employment in most count...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Costo Pérez, Rosa Jeaneth, Tang, Xiaoxiao
Format: Others
Language:English
Published: Uppsala universitet, Företagsekonomiska institutionen 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-455551
Description
Summary:The relationship between Gender Equality (GE) and Sustainability has been analysed for many years, with plenty of studies choosing the angle of the businesses environment to cut in. In addition, SMEs, as the predominant form of enterprise worldwide, are the primary source of employment in most countries. With that in mind, this research scrutinised internal and external drivers to Sustainability Engagement (SE) in Gotland SMEs from a Gender perspective, which presents a probable positive association between GE and SE in SMEs. The study mainly focuses on five female managers’ perceptions of GE and SE, supported by 16 responses to questionnaires. Under the Capabilities Approach (CA) and Dynamic Capabilities theoretical framework, we analyse the specific women managers’ Individual Dynamic Capabilities (IDC) and corporate Dynamic Capabilities, which proves that external and internal factors positively affect corporate SE. The study also introduces a particular psychological model of Social Desirability and Social Approval to delve deeper into female managers sensing mechanisms.