Translating responsible innovation into sustainable SME performance: the mediating roles of sustainable management capabilities and organizational orientation

The growing expectation that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will improve their sustainability performance is still not accompanied by a sufficient understanding of the organisational mechanisms through which responsible innovation is linked to these outcomes. Therefore, this study analyses this relationship in Colombian SMEs, taking sustainable management capabilities (SMC) and organisational orientation towards sustainability (OS) as parallel mediating mechanisms. The analysis is based on data from a cross-sectional survey collected from 411 managers, each representing a different SME. The proposed relationships were tested using PLS-SEM. It was found that responsible innovation was positively related to the sustainable performance of SMEs (SSP) (β = 0.309, p < 0.001). Furthermore, the results showed significant indirect effects via OS (β = 0.121, p < 0.001) and SMC (β = 0.076, p = 0.002), suggesting partial statistical mediation. These results indicate that the relationship between responsible innovation and sustainable performance is not only direct but is also mediated by the strategic orientation and management capabilities developed within the organisation. This study contributes to the still limited literature on Latin American contexts by providing evidence from Colombian SMEs and offering practical insights into the organisational conditions associated with improved sustainability performance.