Victor Yawo Atiase

Sustainable environmental performance (SEP) among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has attracted researchers and practitioners’ attention. The achievement of sustainable environmental performance has been largely dependent on the prevailing external ecosystem conditions. Yet in emerging economies such as Ghana, there is limited research and evidence on the extent to which external ecosystem resources influence sustainable environmental performance. This study aims to investigate how external entrepreneurial ecosystem resources including policy, access to finance, market availability, institutional support, human capital and culture influence the sustainable environmental performance (SEP) of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using sample data from Ghana. A total of 386 SME manufacturing and service firms were sampled to participate. Structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) tested a multi-theory framework grounded in the Resource-based View (RBV), Resource Dependency Theory (RDT) and Stakeholder Theory. The results indicate that policy, finance, institutional support, and markets exert significant positive effects on SMEs’ SEP. Culture and human capital were found to have a weaker contribution to SMEs’ SEP. The novelty of this study lies in empirically demonstrating the primacy of ecosystem structural levers over softer ecosystem factors in driving SME sustainable environmental performance, thereby offering a new explanatory hierarchy of ecosystem drivers for sustainability in developing economies. We advance the RBV, RDT and the Stakeholder Theory by showing that external ecosystem resources act as critical environmental enablers for SMEs in developing economies. The findings offer globally relevant policy insights for advancing SDGs 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and 13 (Climate Action) through targeted ecosystem interventions.

The Ghanaian economy faces significant challenges in providing robust policy support and cohesive ecosystem structures that enable small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in the country to effectively convert entrepreneurial marketing activities into sustainable social outcomes. The research examines the effect of entrepreneurial marketing on sustainable social performance of SMEs using entrepreneurial ecosystem policy as the mediating variable. The Resource Dependency Theory, Resource-Based View and the Stakeholder Theory were utilized, and the study was designed a cross-sectional survey. The data collected were based on 386 SME owners and managers of different sectors in Ghana. Structural equation modeling with SmartPLS 3 was used to test the proposed relationships. The results indicate that entrepreneurial marketing has a significant positive impact on sustainable social performance. In addition to that, ecosystem policy has a strong and positive impact on sustainable social performance. The mediating effect of ecosystem policy in the relationship between entrepreneurial marketing and sustainable social was found to be positive. The research has limitations in that it was cross-sectional and specific to Ghana, which might limit its generalizability. Longitudinal and cross-country designs may be used in future studies to include the dynamic effects of policy interventions. Hypothetically, the research moves towards the mediating role of the ecosystem policy in the relationship between marketing and sustainability. In practice, the study findings highlight the necessity to use combined policy frameworks that empower SMEs to enhance their marketing strengths and social investments to meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 8, 9, and 12. The research finds that enabling policies of entrepreneurial ecosystems are needed to convert the marketing efforts by SMEs into a sustainable social value.

Public project performance is shaped by both organisational capability and governance controls, yet the interaction between these factors remains underexamined in decentralised public administration contexts. This study examines the direct effects of team capability and ethical compliance on project performance, and tests whether ethical compliance conditions the capability–performance relationship. A quantitative explanatory survey design was adopted. Structured questionnaires were administered to 320 senior officers involved in project evaluation, procurement, budgeting and technical oversight, and the data were analysed using PLS-SEM to estimate the hypothesised direct and moderating relationships. Team capability and ethical compliance each have a significant positive effect on project performance, and team capability is positively associated with ethical compliance. The moderating effect of ethical compliance is significant but small in magnitude, indicating that higher levels of compliance modestly attenuate the marginal performance gains associated with greater team capability. These findings suggest that while compliance mechanisms strengthen accountability and directly support performance, they may simultaneously constrain the discretionary flexibility through which capable teams generate incremental improvements. The study contributes to public management research by empirically demonstrating a conditional capability–governance relationship in a local government project context. Given the moderate explanatory power of the model, future research should incorporate additional institutional and political variables to further clarify performance drivers in public-sector project systems.

The study investigates the influence of CSR diversity and inclusion, CSR expenditure, and civic engagement on infrastructure sufficiency in gold mining host communities in Ghana. Utilizing a positivist paradigm and cross-sectional data collection from 400 residents in seven mining communities, PLS-SEM is utilized by the study to test direct and mediating relationships. The findings imply that CSR diversity and inclusion have a significantly positive association with infrastructure sufficiency, whereas CSR expenditure does not affect infrastructure sufficiency. CSR civic engagement also works as an important predictor of infrastructure sufficiency. The CSR civic engagement played a positive mediating role between CSR diversity and inclusion and infrastructure sufficiency. CSR civic engagement mediated the relationship between CSR spending and infrastructure sufficiency in the host mining communities in Ghana. The results contribute to the social exchange theory, showing that perceived fairness and inclusiveness motivate positive community responses. The study also advances empowerment theory and fills a gap in the literature by identifying civic engagement as an important mechanism through which communities can transform CSR inputs into grassroots development impacts. The paper provides practical and policy implications for a more inclusive, transparent, and empowerment-based co-branding CSR approach.

Sustainable environmental performance (SEP) among small and medium-sized enter-prises (SMEs) has attracted researchers and practitioners’ attention. The achievement of sustainable environmental performance has been largely dependent on the prevail-ing external ecosystem conditions. Yet in emerging economies such as Ghana, there is limited research and evidence on the extent to which external ecosystem resources in-fluence sustainable environmental performance. This study aims to investigate how external entrepreneurial ecosystem resources including policy, access to finance, mar-ket availability, institutional support, human capital and culture influence the sus-tainable environmental performance (SEP) of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using sample data from Ghana. Drawing on a positivist, deductive, objective, cross sectional design, we surveyed 386 SMEs manufacturing and service firms. Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) tested a multi-theory framework grounded in Resource Based View (RBV), Resource Dependency Theory (RDT) and Stakeholder Theory. The results indicate that policy, finance, institutional support, and markets exert significant positive effects on SMEs’ SEP. Culture and human capital were found to have weaker contribution to SMEs’ SEP. These findings highlight the primacy of structural over internal factors in resource constrained settings such as Ghana. We advance the RBV, RDT and the Stakeholder Theory by showing that external ecosys-tem resources act as critical environmental enablers for SMEs in developing economies. The findings offer globally relevant policy insights for advancing SDGs 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and 13 (Climate Action) through targeted ecosystem interventions.

The study investigates the influence of CSR diversity and inclusion, CSR expenditure, as well as civic engagement on infrastructure sufficiency in gold mining host communities in Ghana. Utilizing a positivist paradigm and cross-sectional data collection from 400 residents in seven mining communities, PLS-SEM is utilized by the study to test direct and mediating relationships. Findings imply that CSR diversity and inclusion have a significantly positive effect on infrastructure sufficiency, whereas CSR expenditure does not affect infrastructure sufficiency. CSR civic engagement also works as an important predictor of infrastructure sufficiency. The CSR civic engagement played a positive mediating role between CSR diversity and inclusion and infrastructure sufficiency. CSR civic engagement mediated the relationship between CSR spending and infrastructure adequacy in the host mining communities in Ghana. The results contribute to the social exchange theory, showing that perceived fairness and inclusiveness motivate positive community responses. The study also advances the empowerment theory and fills a gap in the literature by identifying civic engagement as an important mechanism through which communities can transform CSR inputs into grassroots development impacts. The paper provides practical and policy implications for a more inclusive, transparent and empowerment-based co-branding CSR approach.

Public-sector project delivery must not only meet time, cost and quality targets but also uphold integrity and accountability. Yet it remains unclear whether ethical compliance simply acts as a direct performance enhancer, or whether it also shapes how effectively project teams convert their skills into outcomes. This study examines the direct effects of team capability and ethical compliance on project performance, and tests whether ethical compliance conditions the capability–performance relationship. A quantitative explanatory survey design was adopted. Structured questionnaires were administered to 320 senior officers involved in project evaluation, procurement, budgeting and technical oversight, and the data were analysed using PLS-SEM to estimate the hypothesized direct and moderating relationships. Team capability and ethical compliance each have a significant positive effect on project performance, and team capability is positively associated with ethical compliance. The moderating effect of ethical compliance is significant and negative, suggesting that higher compliance intensity may dampen the marginal performance gains associated with greater team capability. The findings contribute to public management and organisation studies by conceptualizing ethical compliance as an integrity control architecture that not only shapes performance directly but also acts as a boundary condition on the effectiveness of capabilities. Evidence of a control–flexibility trade-off in public delivery systems refines capability-based explanations of performance by showing that integrity regimes can alter the way capability is converted into outcomes. The results imply that staff capability development programmes should bring together technical capability and ethics or compliance capability rather than treating them as separate tracks. From a policy perspective, the study points to the value of proportionate, risk-based compliance regimes that strengthen accountability while still allowing room for informed discretion in project execution.