The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated some of the challenges that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) face in times of crisis, disrupting their operations, weakening their financial positions, and exposing them to a wide range of financial risks. While previous studies have viewed digital transformation as a vital source of innovation and productivity growth for economic recovery in SMEs, there has been limited focus on digital transformation in the regional context, with very little attention focused on women-led enterprises. This study aims to investigate (i) the determinants of perception of digital transformation among regional SMEs, and (ii) whether the gender of the SME owner or manager has an impact on the drivers of the digital transformation experiences of SMEs operating in regional Australia. Building upon the resource-based view, this study uses a unique dataset of 281 SMEs collected from a survey conducted within a regional area of Queensland, Australia. Employing Feasible Generalised Least Squares and Generalised Least Squares estimations, the study found that the perceptions of digital transformation can be explained by the use of social network platforms, innovation processes, workplace culture, and information and communication technologies. This study also found that there is a significant difference between female-led and male-led SMEs regarding their perceptions of digital transformation. This study offers two key policy and practical insights: (i) digital transformation of regional SMEs should be used as a fundamental tool for crisis recovery strategies, and (ii) the need for policymakers to mainstream gender into postcrisis transformative interventions and policies should be fast tracked.

This study examines the association between a firm’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance and financial performance by examining the extent to which stakeholder and legitimacy theory help explain the effects on explanatory variables used in the study. Moreover, the study makes a novel contribution to existing ESG and performance-based studies by exploring the explanatory effects of ESG and firm performance over ten years. In addition, the study discusses the ESG-performance link of SMEs, thus advancing existing knowledge related to ESG in respect of SME performance. The study uses an extensive Australian sample from Bloomberg’s database from 2007 to 2017, while panel regression analysis is applied to investigate the relationship between a firm’s ESG performance and profitability. The robustness of the results is evaluated after incorporating several robustness checks to address methodological, endogeneity and causality issues related to a firm’s ESG performance disclosure. The empirical findings of this study suggest that improving a firm’s ESG performance is beneficial to all stakeholders of large firms in the long run but not for SME companies. The theoretical model suggests that listed SMEs do not disclose their ESG activities for various reasons, such as a lack of necessary resources. Specifically, the study extends scholarly understanding of existing theory and discusses the significance of the findings for future research.

The goal of this paper is to review the intertwined range of conceptualizations that have blurred developing leadership knowledge regarding environmental sustainability. An examination of the leadership literature reveals differential descriptions about sustainable, environmental, and sustainability leadership which are increasingly being used to imply what sustainability-focused leaders do, their interactions, their relationships, and how they address sustainable challenges. While extant research supports that leadership is a critical capability to respond and adapt to constant external environmental and economic upheaval in large firms, agreement about the types of leadership practices necessary to achieve positive environmental sustainability and eco-efficient outcomes is less clear in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). To resolve these problems, we synthesize the sustainable, environmental and sustainability leadership literature by (a) reviewing and clarifying these leadership constructs, (b) theoretically unravelling these overlapping concepts, and (c) developing an integrated framework of intellectual capital and sustainability leadership practices. From a theoretical perspective, this paper seeks to make a significant contribution to the scholarly leadership literature by offering several leadership classifications of skills and knowledge relevant to leadership knowledge domains. Given that extant research has conflated many leadership approaches, this paper builds on the theoretical knowledge of the kind of leadership skills required for sustainability leadership. From a practical perspective, we provide SME leaders with knowledge about the types of leadership practices, behaviours, and activities that will enhance sustainable productivity in their firms. The paper is designed to advance a new way of thinking about existing sustainability leadership by presenting an original contribution that alters and reorganizes potential causal maps, that are potentially more valuable. Whilst most of the leadership research involves large firms, we seek to better understand and inform sustainability leadership in SMEs.

Managers need to better understand how information and communication technologies (ICTs) lead to informed decisions about the investment and advantages of such technologies. However, at best, the empirical evidence on the business value of technology is mixed in relation to small firms. A total of 43 firms satisfied the study’s definition of start-ups. The final survey included 54 questions on access to and use of ICTs, innovation, firm characteristics, as well as the participants’ demographics, of which 11 factors were analyzed as part of this study. We found compelling evidence to support the positive effects of ICTs on firm-level innovation and performance based on the primary survey data of 270 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) operating in an Australian regional area. Moreover, we found that ICT strategies and skills are important factors that drive innovation and the overall performance of SMEs. In addition, various conditions, such as an agile workplace culture and international trade, can help firms improve their performance. Young businesses, particularly start-ups with ICT skills, show an improved innovation capability. However, remoteness appears to influence innovation negatively for nascent firms. Thus, managers should focus on improving ICT skills, strategies, and networking that help facilitate tangible ICT investments to foster innovation and growth.