Sustainable and socially responsible business: doable reality or just a luxury? An exploratory study of the Bangladeshi manufacturing SMEs

Drawing on the ISO 26000: 2010 – Guidance on Social Responsibility, this study investigates the extent to which Bangladeshi manufacturing SMEs are incorporating sustainability into their day-to-day business activities. The findings reconfirm the existence of the so called ‘attitude-behaviour’ gap. The barriers that hinder the sustainable engagement of SMEs include corruption, a weak regulatory environment, inefficient or ill-suited government and external support, and a lack of awareness of the environmental aspects of SR. In addition, this research reveals that Bangladeshi manufacturing SMEs do, to a certain degree, implement sustainability; only those few issues that suit the owner-managers’ personal motives are addressed, while some others are neglected. Finally, it has been found that the business type and size, and the owner-managers’ educational attainments have no significant influence on the degree of adoption of sustainable and socially responsible business practices by Bangladeshi manufacturing SMEs.