University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL
FRAMEWORK FOR THE DRIVERS AND BARRIERS
TO IMPARTING FREE ENVIRONMENTAL
KNOWLEDGE AND TRAINING TO SMEs
Abstract
Allen Alastair
731
The author uses an extensive review of the SMEs, training and sustainable development
literatures to develop a Conceptual Framework showing the Driving and Restraining Forces for
imparting free environmental knowledge to SMEs.
The work confirms that SMEs are an important and vibrant sector of the economy and a very
diverse and heterogeneous group differing in structure, style, processes and resources from the
larger organisations at which environmental training is generally aimed. Although there are many
bodies wishing to give free environmental assistance to the SME sector, the assistance is not
taken up for a variety of reasons such as lack of awareness of the assistance, a perception that the
assistance is inappropriate to them or that the costs will outweigh the benefits.
This new Conceptual Framework reinforces the view that the owner/manager is the most
important factor in decision-making within. However the Conceptual Framework also discovers
that many Drivers – such as legislation, financial concerns and the attitude to training – can also
be Barriers dependent upon the view of the SME owner/manager, thus presenting providers of
environmental assistance with the dichotomy that a ‘selling point’ for training can also be an
obstacle.
____________________________________________________________________
Keywords: SMEs; Sustainability; Training & Development.; the Environment
Introduction and Context
The context of this article lies within the DBA that the Author is undertaking. The
Author had worked previously for the Institute for Sustainable Development in
Business (ISDB) based at Nottingham Trent University which was a supplier of
sustainable development education – usually on a free basis. In the Author’s
experience, through anecdotal evidence and from reading trade journals, the Author
noticed how difficult it was to ‘give’ this information away. This led to the decision
to examine this phenomenon in a more structured basis through the academic rigour
of a DBA. Initially, this investigated the Barriers to imparting free environmental
knowledge. However it quickly became apparent that an investigation into the
barriers would be worthless without an investigation into how to overcome them and
so the research would look at both barriers and drivers. The ISDB was an
organisation funded by European money (mainly ERDF and ESF) to assist Small and
Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the East Midlands to improve their business
performance through improving their environmental performance. Thus the topics of