A strategic framework for developing sustainable value propositions

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The discussion on firms’ sustainability performance has resulted in business organizations becoming more conscious of sustainability issues and implementing strategies to ensure sustainable value propositions. The purpose of this study is to explore strategies that firms could use to develop sustainable value propositions. Through an extensive literature review, the study proposed a conceptual framework and further developed hypotheses suggesting that the strategies such as stakeholder involvement, flexible decision-making, and social and environmental values could influence sustainable value propositions. The hypotheses were tested through quantitative research analysis using data collected from owners/managers in 143 SMEs in the coastal areas of Ghana. The data supported almost all the hypotheses, namely H1, H2, and H5-H8 with T-values and P-values of > 1.96 and < 0.05, respectively. This finding indicates that all three core antecedents of sustainable value propositions contributed 78 percent of variations in the model. However, contrary to expectations, the result also showed that shareholder orientation and employee orientation with T-values and P-values of ˂ 1.96 and ˃ 0.05, respectively, did not support sustainable value propositions resulting in rejecting H3 and H4. Despite this outcome, the study concludes that all three strategies are relevant and valuable to firms in developing sustainable value propositions.

Acknowledgment
This paper was supported by IGA/FaME/2021/004: SME Innovation Performance, Firm Sustainability performance and Influence of Pandemic on Entrepreneurial wellbeing.

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    • Figure 1. Conceptual model
    • Figure A1. Estimated research model: Output model
    • Table 1. Socio-demographic profile of respondents
    • Table 2. Construct reliability
    • Table 3. Constructs, indicators, loadings, and variance inflation factor
    • Table 4. Test of discriminant validity (Fornell-Larcker criterion)
    • Table 5. Analysis of hypothetical paths
    • Table 6. Predictive power of the model
    • Conceptualization
      Adwoa Yeboaa Owusu Yeboah
    • Formal Analysis
      Adwoa Yeboaa Owusu Yeboah, Abdul Bashiru Jibril
    • Funding acquisition
      Adwoa Yeboaa Owusu Yeboah, Petr Novak
    • Investigation
      Adwoa Yeboaa Owusu Yeboah, Abdul Bashiru Jibril
    • Project administration
      Adwoa Yeboaa Owusu Yeboah, Petr Novak
    • Resources
      Adwoa Yeboaa Owusu Yeboah, Petr Novak
    • Validation
      Adwoa Yeboaa Owusu Yeboah, Petr Novak
    • Visualization
      Adwoa Yeboaa Owusu Yeboah, Abdul Bashiru Jibril
    • Writing – original draft
      Adwoa Yeboaa Owusu Yeboah, Abdul Bashiru Jibril
    • Writing – review & editing
      Adwoa Yeboaa Owusu Yeboah
    • Data curation
      Abdul Bashiru Jibril
    • Methodology
      Abdul Bashiru Jibril
    • Software
      Abdul Bashiru Jibril
    • Supervision
      Petr Novak