Drivers for Malaysian SMEs to Go Green

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) around the world have little knowledge about environmental management and do not understand the concept of environmental management. The concept of green is still very new to Malaysian SME owners/managers, although many green conferences, seminars and campaigns have been carried out for quite some time. The concept for green process and products in Malaysia is at the infancy stage. The drivers of environmental behavior in SMEs are relatively under-researched (Worthington & Patton, 2005) and more needs to be done to help SME owner-managers adopt environmental initiatives (Hitchens et al., 2003) as poor environmental performance is not simply the outcome of negative attitudes by SME owner-managers to the environment. This study identifies five key drivers of environmental management practice for SMEs go green. The five drivers are: economic benefits, financial incentives, stakeholders demand, legislation, resources, motivation and knowledge. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is considered as the most appropriate theory to study the drivers of green environment behavior and to investigate the owners’/managers’ perception and attitude towards Malaysian SMEs’ green concept.

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