Management Issues of SMEs in Turkey from the Perspective of Sustainability

Abstract

Sustainability for SMEs is a process of development target to be achieved by increasing the competitiveness in the
global market. In this context, the purpose of this study is to investigate the SMEs in Turkey within the framework of
management issues and corporate governance viewpoint and to present an outline of possible solutions. Another
purpose of this study is to contribute management literature in terms of shedding lights on the relations of
sustainability and management practices on SMEs to raise awareness. In order to conduct this study method of
detailed literature review is used. Detected management issues and solutions are examined into four main categories,
which are (a) the lack of awareness of the sustainability and failure of implementation of this concept to the
management practices, (b) lack of understanding of the relationship between the expectations of stakeholders on
sustainability and company's future interests, (c) lack of the vision about sustainability and presence of unclearly
defined rules, roles and processes within the companies, (d) lack of skills to analyze the short and long term effects to
the company of not taking sustainability concept into decision making mechanisms.