In the context of the growing ubiquity of sustainability, this study aims to explore how South Indian manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) embrace sustainability drivers through the lens of triple bottom line (TBL) framework within their operations. The study further investigates the extent to which these TBL sustainability drivers influence the overall sustainability performance of South Indian SMEs.
This study collected primary data from 176 production managers, plant supervisors and quality engineers through a structured questionnaire designed in Google Forms. Target respondents were purposively selected by the researchers based on their active involvement in pursuing at least one sustainability driver within the framework of the TBL in the manufacturing plant. The collected data were analyzed using the PLS-SEM framework.
The findings of this study reveal fifteen sustainability drivers, identified through the PLS-SEM framework, for assessing the overall sustainability performance of South Indian manufacturing SMEs. These drivers were grouped into three latent constructs: (i) economic sustainability drivers, (ii) social sustainability drivers and (iii) environmental sustainability drivers. The results indicate that the sample companies pursue at least one sustainability driver within the TBL framework. Furthermore, the sustainability drivers associated with each latent construct were found to have a significant influence on overall sustainability performance of the sample firms.
In the landscape of sustainability, manufacturing SMEs need to embrace sustainability aspects within the framework of TBL in their operations to become sustainable in the competitive business environment. The findings of this study help industrial practitioners and policymakers comprehend and evaluate the critical sustainability drivers from a TBL perspective, while encouraging the adoption of sustainable manufacturing practices to achieve sustainable performance.
This study contributes to the existing literature by integrating the assessment of 15 sustainability drivers within the framework of the TBL for achieving overall sustainability performance. The study also proposes an empirically validated framework of TBL constructs tailored to South Indian manufacturing SMEs, thereby offering valuable insights into measurement of sustainability drivers in emerging economies such as India. Furthermore, it contributes to bridging the gap between theory and practice in the implementation of the TBL framework by identifying and validating key sustainability drivers that influence overall sustainability performance.
