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Small Businesses and Sustainable Development

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Creativity, Invention, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

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Synonyms

CSR; Environmental management; SME

Introduction

If, in light of their numbers, small businesses currently seem less sensitive to the stakes of sustainable development than large firms, they could nevertheless play an important role in expanding the practices. More and more tools, specific devices, and policies are becoming available to them. Their behavior differs somewhat from that of large firms, and at present, there is not a common theoretical approach concerning the commitment of small business in sustainable development.

Keys Concepts and Definition of Terms

Sustainable Development

The story of the concept of sustainable development is now rather well known. Many authors suggest that it began with the Meadows report for the Club of Rome’s book “Limits to Growth,” published in 1972, which put forward the idea that natural resources are not inexhaustible and illustrated the interdependence between the economic and ecological dimensions of development in a systemic...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Montpellier SupAgro - UMR 1110 MOISA, SESG, 2, place Viala, Montpellier, France

    Leïla Temri

Authors
  1. Leïla Temri
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Leïla Temri .

Section Editor information

  1. Decision Support Systems Laboratory, School of Production Engineering and Management, Technical University of Crete, University Campus, Kounoupidiana, 73100, Chania, Greece

    Evangelos (Vangelis) Grigoroudis

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Temri, L. (2017). Small Businesses and Sustainable Development. In: Encyclopedia of Creativity, Invention, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6616-1_235-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6616-1_235-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-6616-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6616-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Business and ManagementReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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