Small and Sustainable? An analysis of the main challenges on the way to sustainability of small-sized companies in an incubator.

Details

Supervisors

Reuter, Carsten

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] : ingénieur de gestion, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

Small businesses are a major source of employment in Belgium. In addition to their growing number, they are also developing a new interest in sustainability. But becoming a sustainable company is not an easy task. To overcome some of these difficulties, certain structures and tools exist. Business incubators are one of them. They provide guidance, advice, and support to small businesses with different resources. From material support to financial resources, incubators have various methods to help entrepreneurs. This research aims to identify possible weaknesses in this system through interviews with Belgian owner-managers who are active in incubators. The combination of these three young and still evolving concepts (small business, incubators, and sustainability) has been of little interest to researchers, while the definitions of these concepts and their relationships continue to evolve. The result is a surprising list of challenges, the first of which concerns the very conception of sustainability. Small companies find themselves prioritizing the three pillars of sustainability in order to survive. Associated with this prioritization, also visible in the academic research interest, an informal approach to dealing with sustainability issues was identified as a source and consequence of various phenomena such as limited perception, lack of tools to deal with these issues, and limited communication within and outside the company.