The role of entrepreneurial orientation in environmental sustainability strategy and internationalisation of SMEs: analysis of the portuguese furniture sector

• Autor(a) principal: Leça, Luís Carlos Tavares de Oliveira
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/21303
• topic: Entrepreneurial orientation; Sustainability; Portuguese; SMEs; Portuguese furniture sector; Orientação empreendedora; Sustentabilidade; Internacionalização; PMEs; Setor mobiliário português; Gestão

The main objective of this study is to analyse the role of Entrepreneurial Orientation in the Portuguese furniture sector, the response to the challenges posed by Environmental Sustainability and the impacts in terms of the Internationalisation of SMEs. The literature review was carried out in relation to Entrepreneurship, focused on the logic of developing companies and expressed in the construct of Entrepreneurial Orientation, but also Environmental Sustainability and Internationalisation, which structured the survey conducted to the managers of SMEs in the furniture sector (Economic Code of Activity Rev.3: 31-; 46-; e 47-) and, whose results, were the basis for the empirical study. The study is innovative, firstly, by analysing the concept of Entrepreneurial Orientation and its application to SMEs in the Portuguese furniture sector, formed in 2021 by 4,413 companies, more than 6% of the manufacturing industry and that presents, in 2021, an international trade balance of US$723 million (UN COMTRADE, 2022). Secondly, for analysing the impact of Entrepreneurial Orientation on the dynamics of Environmental Sustainability and Circular Economy, reinforcing the relevance of the theme given the time of climate urgency that the world is facing, in a critical area for natural capital, such as the forest and its derived products. The results obtained allowed validating the construct of Entrepreneurial Orientation - measured by 8 items of Innovativeness (3), Proactiveness (2) and Risk-Taking (3) - in the SME managers of the sample, with a mean of 3.396 and a minimum of 2.869, on a scale of 5 (statistically validated). It also allowed confirming the existence of a positive relationship between Entrepreneurial Orientation and sustainability strategy, evaluated by the scale of the Sustainable Development business model. The sector has effectively started a sustainable development strategy, less than 1/3 reports inaction before this change of paradigm (29.9%), and there are companies with a very advanced and implemented sustainable business model, 47.7% are already at the Sustainable Product and Service Design level. It was also demonstrated, at the level of Internationalisation, that EO and the dynamics of the business model in terms of Sustainability anticipate the high scale of internationalisation of companies in the furniture sector.