There’s increasing evidence that activities from humans are affecting the earth system to a degree that is crossing the planetary boundaries. During the last decade, Circular Economy has gained attention from both academia, companies, and policymakers and is seen as one way to address economical and sustainability issues. A circular transition requires the implementation of innovative business models, but the uptake of circular business models is still slow. In Sweden, 99,9% of all companies are classified as small and medium-sized enterprises. Those companies play an important role in the circular transition, but the process is however slow due to internal factors like lack of resources and competencies alongside other barriers like regulations, market, and lack of support. Despite a lot happening in the field of circular transition for small and medium-sized enterprises, there's still little research focused on the ongoing state of circular economy in practice. In this exploratory study, semi-structured interviews have been used to explore the ongoing state in Sweden. The aim of the study is to explore how intermediaries are supporting small and medium-sized enterprises with adopting circular economy in Sweden and what kind of challenges and opportunities the intermediaries have experienced along the circular transition process. The results show that we should go beyond the general drivers and barriers for adopting a circular economy. The challenging barriers might not be a lack of resources and regulations, it might be the lack of awareness and interest from companies themselves. What became clear during the interview study was that the environmental benefits of adopting circular economy is not the driving force but rather a result of adopting circular economy. The motivation in the first place for adopting circular economy is that it can create a better and a smarter business. There was a consensus among the intermediaries that when one is workings with companies, one must highlight the business values of a circular economy: profitability, resource efficiency, loyal customers, etc. If companies don’t see the opportunities and benefits of adopting circular economy, they won’t prioritize and allocate resources for it. The complexity of a circular transition also requires collaboration on different levels: between companies, regions, business developers, municipalities, research institutes, policy developers, etc. To enable the overall collaboration, there’s a need for a comprehensive facilitator or coordinator on different levels (national, regional, and local) that can unify the national transition.

Aim. The purpose of this degree project was to assess the impact of the sudden, historically-unique COVID-19 workplace restrictions on the knowledge management and interrelated ICT utilization of a knowledge-intensive SME in Germany. Based upon the outcomes of this assessment, suggestions for future advancement were to be developed.Research Approach. The research approach entailed a qualitative case study addressing a single IT company with 42 employees. The research itself was conducted via triangulation, with the semi-structured interviews of four purposely sampled company executives serving as the focal part. Fundamental aspects of these interviews were further substantiated through four exploratory meeting observations and a company-wide questionnaire contributing 14 employee responses.Findings. Subject to the pandemic-related workspace restrictions, this company was forced to transition to predominantly virtual operations. The organization responded through the introduction of a new, integrated ICT for employee collaboration while simultaneously expediting the codification of tacit knowledge across two existing knowledge repositories. This focus on only a few essential ICTs led to a reduction of prior systems clutter and the company-wide accessibility of explicit knowledge – a quantum leap in terms of efficiency. Along with the primary collaboration via ICTs, a new interaction etiquette developed amongst employees, and IT-related staff was found to cooperate more actively than in the previous on-site environment. Given these insights, this German IT house is recommended to continue its emergently hybrid knowledge management strategy and consider the benefits of both the physical and virtual spaces for an office redesign past the COVID-19 limitations.Originality. Academic references attending to knowledge management during forced workplace restrictions were de facto nonexistent. Adding to it, previous studies on virtual knowledge management indicated a deterioration of performance as compared to on-site operations. This case study is hence not only unique by its pandemic link, but also countering apparent academic presupposition.

Problematiseringen i den här studien har visat att det redan har gjorts en omfattande forskning avseende hållbarhetsrapportering, SME:s och motivationen bakom hållbarhetsaktiviteter. Emellertid har ett forskningsgap identifierats angående varför små och medelstora aktiebolag som inte har lagstadgad skyldighet att hållbarhetsrapporterar ändå gör det. Därigenom är syftet med den här studien att undersöka varför svenska små och medelstora aktiebolag frivilligt upprättar en hållbarhetsrapport, samt vad rapporterna innehåller. För att besvara syftet har legitimitetsteorin, intressentteorin och tidigare forskning främst angående inre och yttre motivationsfaktorer använts för att skapa ett teoretiskt ramverk. Den här studien bygger på en abduktiv forskningsansats och främst med en interpretivistisk forskningsfilosofi. Studien genomförs med fem semistrukturerade intervjuer och en innehållsanalys av åtta svenska SME:s hållbarhetsrapporter. Resultatet antyder att främsta yttre motivationsfaktorer var att hållbarhetsrapporten användes som ett hållbarhetsbevis, marknadsföringsverktyg och för att vinna nya kunder. Resultatet antyder att den främsta inre motivationsfaktorn var stolthet. Dessutom identifierade följande tre tidigare okända inre motivationsfaktorer: “träning”, “helhetsöverblick” och “försvarande av bransch”. Studiens resultat antyder slutligen på att yttre motivationsfaktorer är mer drivande än inre, vilket framkommer ur empirin främst i form av att hållbarhetsrapporten användes som ett marknadsföringsverktyg och för att vinna upphandlingar. Studien visade även att hållbarhetsrapporterna innehåller brister i kvaliteten främst i avseendet jämförbarhet, tydlighet, aktualitet och granskningsbarhet. / The problematization in this study has shown that extensive research has already been done on sustainability reporting, SME’s, and the motivation behind sustainability activities. However, a research gap has been identified as to why SME:s voluntarily prepares a sustainability report, although they do not meet the legal requirements, as well as what the reports contain. To answer the purpose,  legitimacy theory, stakeholder theory and previous research mainly regarding internal and external motivational factors have been used to create a theoretical framework. This study is based on an abductive research approach and primarily with an interpretivistic research philosophy. The study is conducted with five semi-structured interviews and a content analysis of eight Swedish SME sustainability reports. The results suggest that the main external motivational factors were that the sustainability report was used as a sustainability certificate, marketing tool and to win new customers. The result suggests that the main internal motivation factor was pride. In addition, the following three previously unknown internal motivational factors were identified as: "training", "holistic overview" and "defense of industry". Finally, the results of the study suggest that external motivational factors are more driving than internal, which emerges from empirical evidence mainly in the form of the sustainability report being used as a marketing tool and to win procurements. The study also showed that the sustainability reports contain deficiencies in quality mainly in lack of comparability, clarity, timeliness and reviewability.

The COVID-19 crisis has brought uncertainty to the global economy and companies around the world have been significantly affected by the pandemic. Companies in the traveling and hospitality, retail, and pharmaceutical industries have been particularly affected. This paper studies the impact of COVID-19 on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and employee well-being in these industries among small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) and larger-sized ones. The results showed that COVID-19 has had a negative effect on CSR and employee well-being in ten case study companies, based in the European Union. This negative effect could be overturned, however, if companies adopt certain measures. More concretely, five key factors have been identified: (i) leadership/management style; (ii) CSR form and orientation; (iii) alignment of CSR with the institutional environment, (iv) organizational changes, and (v) positive employees’ perceptions and reactions. Therefore, companies at all levels should pay more attention to the impact of COVID-19 on CSR and employee well-being and take countermeasures in order to mitigate the effects on the industry and advance sustainable development.

By using the cross-sectional data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey, this dissertation selects a sample of over 3000 firms from 16 Central and Eastern European countries during the 2008 financial crisis, to assess (1) How effective priori classifications are to identify financially constrained and unconstrained firms in times of economic recession (2) What the main robust determinants are at the firm and country-level that affect SMEs' degree of financing obstacles (3) What experiences and lessons we can learn from 2008 crisis to combat with 2020 and future emerging recession. Our evidence indicates that during the economic crisis happened in 2008, size, industry, ownership and EU dummy are useful priori classifications while distinguishing firms' different degree to financing troubles, although some of other priori classifications appeared on other literature are ineffective. Smaller firms, foreign-owned and firms in manufacturing are more likely to report the financing trouble and have less access to formal sources of finance. However, government-owned firms and firms with adequate educated workers are less likely to be financially constraint. The result confirms that economic freedom, financial market and trade integration all have a significant relationship with SMEs' access to finance. For...

Die vorliegende Dissertation befasst sich mit dem Markt für Mittelstandsanleihen, der 2010 in Deutschland etabliert wurde und nur wenige Jahre später, im Zusammenhang mit massiven Anleiheausfällen, zusammengebrochen ist. Ziel der Arbeit ist es zu analysieren, welche Faktoren zum Zusammenbruch des Marktes beigetragen haben könnten, um besser zu verstehen, wie mittelständischen Unternehmen der Zugang zum Kapitalmarkt erleichtert werden kann. Das erste Kapitel analysiert die Entscheidung, sich am Markt für Mittelstandsanleihen zu finanzieren. Verschiedene Theorien versuchen zu erklären, welche Unternehmen sich vorrangig über Banken und welche sich am Kapitalmarkt finanzieren. Entgegen der Theorie haben sich vorwiegend Unternehmen mit schlechterer Kreditwürdigkeit am Markt für Mittelstandsanleihen finanziert. Das zweite Kapitel untersucht, ob der Zugang zum Markt für Mittelstandsanleihen finanzielle Beschränkungen aufheben und so Investitionen anstoßen konnte. Eine alternative Motivation könnte jedoch auch sein, dass Unternehmen sich Geld von gutgläubigen Privatinvestoren geliehen haben, um die Insolvenz zu verschleppen. Emittenten von Mittelstandsanleihen waren zwar finanziell eingeschränkt, investierten jedoch weniger als erwartet. Eine große Anzahl der Emittenten wäre ohne die Mittelstandsanleihe bereits im Jahr der Emission zahlungsunfähig gewesen. Das dritte Kapitel untersucht vor dem Hintergrund der massiven Zahlungsausfälle, ob Investoren in der Lage waren, Unternehmen mit hohem Risiko von solchem mit niedrigerem Risiko zu unterscheiden. Erschwert wurde die korrekte Einschätzung der Risiken durch eine starke Präsenz von Privatinvestoren sowie einer Inflation der Anleiheratings. Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass Investoren nicht in der Lage waren, riskante von weniger riskanten Mittelstandsanleihen zu unterscheiden. Dies könnte zum Zusammenbruch des Marktes beigetragen haben, da dieser für hochqualitative Unternehmen letztendlich zu teuer war. / This dissertation explores the German market for SME bonds that was established in 2010 and collapsed soon after, when one third of the listed bonds defaulted. The first paper studies the choice to enter the German MBond market. The results show that MBond issuers in contrast to theoretical predictions and prior empirical findings, have lower credit quality. The second paper examines to the extent to which the main goal of the MBond market, alleviating nancial constraints in order to spur firm investment, has been achieved. Indeed, a major fraction of MBond issuers have been finnancially constrained in the year prior to issuance. However, MBond issuers appear to invest less than expected. The results are more in favor of the alternative explanation that MBond issuers timed the market and exploited a window of opportunity to issue junk bonds to retail investors, in order to nance future losses and avoid or postpone bankruptcy. In the light of the high default rate and the final collapse of the market, the third paper analyzes whether investors were able to distinguish between high and low risk MBonds. Rating in ation in the MBond market could have distorted the information channel, hampering investors' risk assessment of the MBonds. The results indicate that di erences in default risk were not adequately reflected in MBond yield spreads. Thus, it appears that MBond investors were not able to distinguish between high and low quality issuers. As a consequence, the MBond market was relatively more expensive for high quality issuers than it was for their low quality counterparts, which may have contributed to the near-total collapse of the market.

Allt mer fokus har på senare tid riktats på hur företag arbetar med hållbarhet. För att nå en hållbar utveckling måste företagen styra sina organisationer till att uppnå samtliga av de tre dimensionerna: social-, miljömässig-, och ekonomisk utveckling. På egna initiativ och med eventuella påtryckningar från diverse intressenter har begreppet Corporate Social Responsibility blivit än mer aktuellt. Detta innebär att företagen tar ett socialt ansvar som sträcker sig utöver vad lagen kräver att de ska göra. På så vis har företag inte längre enbart de finansiella målen att arbeta mot utan även sociala och miljömässiga mål. Tidigare studier har mestadels fokuserat på hur de större företagen arbetar med att styra sina organisationer mot en hållbar utveckling. Att arbeta med hållbarhet är resurskrävande och leder ofta till ökade kostnader på kort sikt vilket gör det extra problematiskt för små och medelstora företag (SME) då dessa kännetecknas av att ha knappa resurser. Trots att tidigare forskning visar att de allra flesta SME arbetar med hållbarhet saknas emellertid betydande kunskaper angående hur de gör detta. Då majoriteten av företagen som finns i Sverige är klassificerade som SME innebär det att de har en stor betydelse för om en hållbar utveckling ska vara möjlig i samhället. Syftet med denna studie blev således att skapa förståelse för hur SME arbetar med att implementera hållbar utveckling i den interna verksamhetsstyrningen. För att skapa en förståelse valdes en kvalitativ forskningsansats där empiriska data samlades in via semistrukturerade intervjuer där tolv personer med ledande befattningar inom SME intervjuades. Resultaten från studien analyserades sedan utifrån det teoretiska ramverket. De viktigaste resultaten som studien visar är att SME i hög utsträckning tillämpar personalkontroll i form av att de arbetar med att skapa gemensamma värderingar för att få personalen att vilja uppnå hållbarhetsmål och policys. Handlingskontroll används i viss mån för att förhindra att misstag begås. I enlighet med tidigare forskning visar studien att SME ofta saknar kompetens och resurser för att fullt ut arbeta mot en hållbar utveckling. Detta då de tycker det är problematiskt att få ner hållbarhetsarbetet till en individnivå vilket kan innebära en risk för att denna aspekt blir åsidosatt när de anställda ska fatta beslut inom företaget. / Sustainable development in small and medium sized enterprises - how are the employees steered? More and more focus has recently been put on how companies work with sustainability. To reach a sustainable development companies must steer their organizations to achieve all dimensions of social, environmental and the economic development. By companies own initiative and with possible pressure from various stakeholders the concept of Corporate Socials Responsibility has become even more relevant. This means that companies take social responsibility that goes beyond what the law requires them to do. Because of this companies also have social and environmental goals to work toward as well as the financial ones. Earlier studies have mostly focused on how larger companies work to steer their organizations towards a sustainable development. To work with sustainability is resource-intensive and often leads to increased costs in the short term which makes it especially problematic for small and medium sized enterprises (SME) as these are characterized by scarce resources. As most of the Swedish companies are classified as SME this means that they play a major role in whether sustainable development would be possible within the society. Hence, the purpose of our study became to create an understanding of how SME work to implement sustainable development into their internal management control. To create an understanding a qualitative research approach was chosen where empirical data was collected through semi-structed interviews where twelve people with senior positions within SME were interviewed. The results of the study were then analyzed based on the theoretical framework.   The most important results obtained in our study are that SME to a large extent applies personal control in the form of working to create common norms and values within their company to get the employees to want to achieve the goals and policies linked to sustainability. Action control is also used to some extent to prevent mistakes from being made. In accordance with previous research the study shows that SME often lack the competence and resources to work fully towards a sustainable development. This because they find it problematic to reduce the sustainability work to an individual level. Because of this there is a risk that the sustainability aspect will be neglected when the employees make their decisions within the company.

Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) managers struggle to stay competitive. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies SME managers located in Canada use to engage third-party logistics (3PL) providers to improve their supply chains. Porter's value chain theory formed the conceptual framework for this study. Data collection included semistructured interviews with 3 managers from 3 different SMEs in the province of Ontario and a review of the documents related to the use of 3PL providers. Member checking was conducted to enhance credibility of interpretation of the data collected. Data analysis was used to identify key themes, and data triangulation was performed on data from interviews and relevant company documents. Main themes that indicated the benefits of 3PL providers were identified through data analysis. The main themes included access to resources, competitive advantage, and enhanced customer service. Study findings may contribute to social change by helping SME managers improve their survival rate in Canada, maintain or create employment, and generate more personal income and taxes.

Institutional policies or terms and conditions of credit allocation complicate the demand and supply of small business enterprise (SBE) credit, causing lost profits. Banks leaders losing 28% of profitable projects because of the high rejection rate of credit applications for SBE loans is a concern. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies Southeastern Nigerian state bank leaders use to minimize lost profit from SBE credit rejections. The conceptual framework that grounded this study was credit rationing focused on the lender-borrower relationship. Data collection involved reviews of company documents and face-to-face semistructured interviews of 6 participants from 3 banks in the Southeastern Nigerian state. Based on the Schorr's modified data analysis approach, 5 themes emerged (a) credit rationing depends on sufficient information (b) business accounts statements are a fall back for credit availability (c) character may be more important than collateral (d) government policies are challenges to the formal banking system (e) profits may be a hedge for high-interest rates. Findings may be used to enhance the profitability of banks in the Southeastern Nigerian state. Implications for positive social change may include the support of community projects for individuals living at or below the poverty level in the region.

Access to credit in the changing environment is the primary challenge to survival for many small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owners. The purpose of this multicase study was to understand how seasoned small business leaders in wholesaling and manufacturing in Northwest Arkansas strategically adapted to obtaining access to credit in an environment of bank mergers and acquisitions, disruptive information technology, federal and state regulations, and globalization. The conceptual framework that grounded this study was adaptive leadership and change management. Although, small business leaders prefer to obtain credit from community banks through relationship financing, leaders of SMEs can adapt to the challenges of the changing environment. The data collection process involved face-to-face, onsite, semistructured interviews of 5 participant SME owners selected via purposive sampling throughout the Northwest Arkansas region. Analysis of the transcripts involved coding data into groups using keyword identification and regrouping the data into themes. Themes that emerged from the study included the importance of formalizing a capital strategy, utilizing alternative forms of financing, and responding and adapting to change. Also, small business owners use financial software to provide technical, financial reports, and pro forma statements with variance analysis. Positive social change from the findings of this study may develop through SMEs' potential to increase job provision thereby benefiting workers' families with better employment opportunities, enhancing public infrastructure through greater tax revenues, and generating a long-term, viable, sustainable future to the region's public education through an increased tax base.