Creating shared value (CSV) is an opportunity for sustainable growth for small and medium-sized enterprises that entails jointly achieving both social and business value. Currently there are few practical approaches that underpin the importance of CSV and that explore which variables have a positive impact on SMEs. Our paper seeks to shed light on this issue by proposing a measuring and governance model to assess the benefits of CSV in SMEs, using a sample of Spanish SMEs for the empirical analysis, and PLS-SEM as the analysis technique. We first highlight innovation management as a key variable for CSV. It is essential to take innovative strategic decisions to identify which initiatives generate shared value. Our findings confirm that innovative business management helps cultural transformation processes to be implemented with high shared value, which is a source of opportunities in a global economy and, consequently, lead to sustainable growth. Secondly, we aim to highlight how innovative firms enhance their reputation, which in turn has an impact on the creation of social and business value. We also find that if SMEs emphasise social value, they boost the creation of business value, with their role as mediators proving to be vital. We present a strategic management model based on variables such as innovation management, social value and reputation, due to their impact on business value.

Despite the limited resources of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), they can still manage to be competitive and survive in the current environment by implementing competitive strategies that lead to innovation and improve their market performance. The aim of this study is to examine and analyse the effect of business strategy on market performance in Spanish small and medium-sized entrepreneurial enterprises, and the mediating effect of innovation is explored as a solution to business crises. In addition, we analyse the moderating effect that the perceived risk of COVID-19 may have on this relationship, as well as whether the commercialisation capacity of SMEs exerts an impact and improves performance based on innovation. Taking 1,842 Spanish entrepreneurial firms with fewer than 250 employees as a reference and using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), our study shows that entrepreneurial SMEs that apply a competitive strategy can achieve enhanced innovation. Moreover, this innovation has a direct and positive effect on the market performance of SMEs, and this effect is greater under higher marketing capability. Our findings suggest a heterogeneous effect on the impact of the perceived risk of COVID-19 on the strategy-innovation relationship. In entrepreneurial SMEs that adopt a differentiation strategy, the perceived risk has an enhancing impact, while in entrepreneurial SMEs that follow cost strategies, the effect is negative.

During environmental crises, it has always been particularly interesting to investigate how companies, specifically small- and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs), find solutions to survive and learn how to act in adverse situations. We conducted our study during the current coronavirus pandemic to analyse how stakeholder pressure affects both the innovation capabilities of SMEs and their firm performance. On the one hand, we examine whether the market and financial performance are better in the presence of less stakeholder pressure. On the other hand, we analyse whether SMEs implement internal mechanisms that enhance their innovation capacity to solve external problems caused by greater stakeholder pressure, which in turn affects firm performance. Our main findings show that during the pandemic, stakeholder pressure is related to the innovative capacity of SMEs; therefore, the higher the pressure, the more important the innovative response of SMEs. However, with higher pressure, the company's performance would be directly reduced in the short term, as the conditions set would be more unfavourable. Innovation capacity also plays a mediating role in preventing poor business performance because of increased stakeholder pressure. Owing to the importance of the chief executive officer (CEO) in SMEs, we test, through multigroup analysis, the differences based on the CEO's educational level. For example, commitment to innovation in SMEs may be more important for managers with higher education. Finally, our findings show how managers can learn to face new challenges in unfavourable environments.

Purpose: Sustainability is an important priority for CEOs according to a recent Mckinsey (2021) survey. However, despite growing pressure from capital investors, employees and consumers, few organizations are satisfied with the sustainability objectives achieved beyond objectives related to economic savings. The sustainability challenge is even more difficult for organizations when dealing with designing their innovation portfolio strategies since the markets´ demands and competitors´ strategies may contradict organizations’ sustainability objectives and thus jeopardize their continuity. Some researchers argue that a commitment to sustainability in organizations is not so much a matter of managerial practice but rather is rooted in organizational values (Globocnik et al., 2020). Therefore, this research aims to explore what types of organizational values more effectively promote sustainability-oriented innovation in organizations. Using as a conceptual framework the competing values theory (Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1983), and adding one dimension, risk aversion, we empirically define some clusters of business typologies from which we derive patterns of value profiles. We show how these clusters’ patterns of values relate to the success of a firm’s sustainability-oriented innovation.Methodology: To make sense of our literature review and ensure managerial relevance, we surveyed 128 senior managers from different industries and countries to understand how their perceived organizational values may impact their firms’ sustainability-oriented innovation success. As a result, we group the studied organizations into four clusters according to the informed organizational values, and we assess how the different clusters are more or less prone to succeed with a sustainability-oriented innovation strategy.Findings: Our results show that not all organizational values contribute equally to the success of sustainability-oriented innovation in the market. As a theoretical contribution, we advance current knowledge about how organizational values may impact sustainability-oriented innovation success by providing a framework to measure and follow up on the evolution of necessary organizational values to embrace sustainability-oriented innovation within an organization. From a managerial perspective, we advance knowledge on how organizational values should evolve and change to efficiently deliver more sustainability-oriented innovation. In addition, we describe specific values that organizations should measure and track and otherwise establish as an important first step toward implementing sustainability-oriented innovation within them.Originality: Our research provides original results by expanding current knowledge on organizational values to better understand which values more efficiently promote competitive sustainability-oriented innovation in organizations. We expand the four organizational cultural archetypes of organizational values to develop a more flexible and actionable framework of five dimensions by adding an important dimension to the model, risk aversion. Together, these dimensions generate new insights through a cluster analysis of organizational differences and inform priorities and courses of actions to undertake.Research limitations and implications: This research is based on self-report surveys and is therefore exposed to the expected limitations of the survey research methodology.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a crucial role in supporting the country’s economy. However, Spanish SMEs have not developed their full potential. It is thus essential for managers to seek and adopt better strategies to be more successful. In today’s turbulent environments, digital transformation strategy is considered an important strategic competitive resource. Given its importance, managers are encouraged to develop their capabilities to deal with digitilization efficiently, leading them to be more innovative and obtain higher levels of organizational effectiveness. There is extensive research in the literature on the effect of digitalization strategy on organizational effectiveness, with it being considered a composite construct. Little research has been conducted, however, to examine the independent effects on its economic, human resources and internationalization dimensions. Based on the Input-Mediator-Output framework, this study aims to highlight the mechanisms through which digital transformation strategy improves organizational effectiveness. Specifically, this article examines (1) the direct effect of SMEs’ digital transformation strategy and organizational effectiveness on their economic, human resources and internationalization dimensions, and (2) the mediating role of firm innovation in these relationships. To test our hypotheses, we randomly selected SMEs operating in Spain from the INE 2022 database. The selection framework used was the SABI database developed by Faedpyme (2023). Once the data were filtered, information was obtained for 1,113 SMEs. To test our hypothesis, we used structural equation modeling (SEM) based on partial least squares (PLS) and Smart PLS 4.0.9.9. PLS-SEM is a robust statistical technique that allows for the positing of direct and mediated relationships simultaneously between the study variables. Our results revealed that digital transformation strategy has a positive impact on the economic, human resources and internationalization dimensions of organizational effectiveness. Furthermore, we found that firm innovation partially mediates the positive influence of digital transformation strategy and the three dimensions of organizational effectiveness. Thus, SMEs that wish to improve their effectiveness should orient their strategy towards higher levels of firm innovation. Testing this model contributes to the literature in two ways. First, it sheds new light on how digital transformation strategy fosters higher levels of organizational effectiveness in SMEs, specifically, in its economic, human resources and internationalization dimensions, which have not hitherto been analyzed in the literature. Second, our results add to the organizational effectiveness theory, which is dominated by research on large firms. They also extend the evidence that digital transformation strategy and firm innovation are positive for organizational effectiveness in SMEs.