A framework development to evaluate the needs of SMEs in order to adopt a sustainability-balanced scorecard

Recently, many scholars have proposed the sustainability-balanced scorecard (S-BSC) as an essential strategic management tool and suitable approach for evaluating corporate sustainability because of its ability to combine financial and nonfinancial measurements, which provide indispensable information in order to have an overall picture of corporate sustainability performance. Despite appropriateness of a S-BSC as a measurement framework of corporate sustainability performance, limited empirical work has been implemented in relation to the barriers and challenges that small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face in their efforts to adopt a S-BSC. To contribute to this field, this paper provides a framework, based on SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis, to facilitate the investigation of managers' and owners' opinions of SMEs regarding S-BSC implementation. The findings of this work show that the majority of managers, from SMEs sampled, report the increased awareness of their environmental responsibilities and the fact that it is easy to handle very important incentives to adopt a S-BSC, while they consider as important disincentives the cost requirements and the existence of alternative tools with less management needs.