Future Innovation Unleashed for Sustainability in Longitudinal Research in Micro- and Small-Sized Enterprises

Abstract

The research reveals how micro- and small-sized enterprises can unleash future innovation to pursue sustainability. This empirical participatory action research is conducted from 2018 to 2022 in 18 multi-case micro- and small-sized enterprises. The findings reveal that these enterprises pursue sustainability through instrumental, moral and intrinsic value creation in combination. Despite the experienced uncertainty and resource limitations of the participating enterprises, they can pursue future innovation to create value for customers and society addressing, respectively, UN SDGs No. 3, 8, 9, 11, 12 and 17. None of the hitherto noted entrepreneurial literature branches can alone support micro- and small-sized enterprises to pursue future innovation. However, the literature branches illustrate individual useful strengths. Furthermore, they illustrate limitations for value creation. The illustrated useful strengths and the accompanying limitations call for context-dependent use in micro- and small- sized enterprises through the integration of the relevant specific extant literature branches to support their innovation aims, respectively, utilising opportunities, their own and others’ heterogeneous behaviours and reorganising resources to unleash future sustainable innovation in an action learning approach. Further collaborative participatory action research is needed to support and enable the practical implication potential for value creation in micro- and small-sized enterprises.

1. Introduction

The EU Commission [1] have recently highlighted that small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have “significant innovative capabilities”, which are interesting for future innovation to drive the greening of products and services to pursue sustainability. However, it is stressed by the EU Commission that there is an urgent need for more research to shed light on the progress of SMEs in this anticipated sustainable transformation. In the EU definition of SMEs [2], a split is made between micro-enterprises (less than 10 employees), small-sized enterprises (between 10 and 49 employees) and medium-sized enterprises (between 50 and 249 employees). In the EU, it is interesting that 93% of SMEs are micro-sized with 44% of employees to add 35% of value creation and 6% of SMEs are small-sized with 31% of employees to add 32% of value creation in society. A large potential is thus present for micro- and small-sized enterprises to drive future innovation for value creation to transform business for good. Managers in SMEs are characterised by an entrepreneurship approach to business [3].

The anticipation held by the EU Commission [1] that SMEs have significant innovative capabilities is challenged by recent entrepreneurship literature which shows mixed evidence [4] with very dispersed and fragmented findings [5]. This means that knowledge accumulation in the entrepreneurial field is limited. High uncertainty [6] is often highlighted to be present in entrepreneurial literature. The uncertainty revealed shows contradictory results to other research fields, as uncertainty stressors can have a positive impact on entrepreneurial enterprises in contrast to the findings in, e.g., larger enterprises (LEs) (with more than 250 employees) [7].

In the entrepreneurship literature, entrepreneurs are defined by Ness and Seifert [8] as ”individuals, who have risked or intend to risk their personal capital, personal time and personal reputation in pursuit of business ventures”. This means that the behaviours of entrepreneurial managers and their SME organisation to risk money, time and reputation are essential premises for their organisation. Research for accumulating knowledge can therefore take a point of origin in this definition of entrepreneurs. The following research question is then posed to enhance the extant knowledge:

How can micro- and small-sized enterprises pursue future innovation for sustainability?

Entrepreneurship literature has mainly developed in three literature branches [5], which all address value creation [9]. Respectively, the notion of “opportunity creation” [10], “effectuation” [11,12] and “bricolage” [13]. The three literature streams all address entrepreneurial value creation, which can potentially transform business for good. However, the three understandings are very rarely investigated in an integrative and complementary approach in entrepreneurship literature for value creation [9].

The research in this article is based on a multi-case research approach containing 18 micro- and small-sized enterprises in the period from mid-2018 to mid-2022. The aim of the research is to contribute to the research question posed by linking entrepreneurial literature and entrepreneurial practices for future innovation to enhance value creation as pursued in the Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach [14]. The PAR approach is chosen to support the iterative processes between theory and practice to emerge in micro- and small-sized enterprises to enable future innovation for value creation.

The findings illustrate the uncertainty experienced by micro- and small-sized enterprises in the seminal understanding of Knight [6], where no probabilities nor outcomes caused by uncertainty can be estimated in advance. Despite these uncertainty preconditions and the limited resources present, it is highlighted that these enterprises pursue value in the combination of instrumental, moral and intrinsic value creation. However, they can become stuck in their aims if they do not apply the relevant literature branch recommendations to support them to pursue innovation.

The outline of the article begins with the literature review to reveal the gaps in the existing knowledge. Then, the research context and methodology are explained to understand the research conducted. The analyses of collected data are conducted and summarised in a model for dissemination. Finally, the discussion reveals further research, and the conclusion ends the article.

1.1. Current State of Understanding

The current understanding is revealed regarding future innovation by respectively highlighting innovation for entrepreneurial value creation as highlighted in the business model innovation (BMI) literature and in the individual and organisational behaviour literature to reveal a contribution to the research question according to the definition of entrepreneurs [8]. Micro- and small-sized enterprises are very dependent on the behaviour of the manager in their organisation ([3,15,16], and therefore an integrated approach is needed between individual and organisational behaviour domains considering future innovation for value creation and the BMI domain. First, the literature on entrepreneurial value creation is reviewed.

1.1.1. Value Creation in Entrepreneurial Approaches

Hitherto, literature within the entrepreneurial field has focused on value creation for the enterprise [5]. Value creation is in this paper understood in three broad ranges of distinguishable forms ([17], namely, “instrumental value” (e.g., amount of money, return on investments)”, “moral value” (e.g., justice, taking care of the vulnerable) and ”intrinsic value” (e.g., as a virtue to strive for such as increased nature experiences, good health and mastering certain capabilities). All approaches represent forms of value creation for various stakeholders within and outside the organisation. Eggert, Kleinaltenkamp and Kashyap [18] in their literature review noted that the concept of value creation is both inherently individual and collective. The perception of value creation is subjective as stated by Vargo and Lusch [19]: “value is always uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary”. In summary, value perceptions of stakeholders thus diverge both in subjective content and experience, which make value creation fuzzy and challenging to reveal.

Additionally, uncertainty in entrepreneurial micro- and small-sized enterprises is high [4,5], which means continuous transformation to match derived market and competitive imperfections providing opportunities for value creation as noted in the literature branch of ”opportunity creation” [10]. Next, experienced entrepreneurs can utilise themselves and their network for enhanced value creation as noted in the literature branch of ”effectuation” [11]. Finally, entrepreneurs can utilise resource scarcity to develop enhanced new combinations of solutions for value creation as noted in the branch of “bricolage” [9,13]. A less fragmented approach for research is called for to reveal and accumulate a more thorough understanding of micro- and small-sized enterprise transformation of business to pursue sustainability [9]. In summary, three entrepreneurial literature branches are present to support entrepreneurial innovation for value creation.

Value Creation and Uncertainty

In the uncertainty notion highlighted by Knight [6], a difference between “uncertainty” and “risk” is stressed. The notion of “risk” is present when outcomes and probabilities can be estimated ex ante based on data and experiences hitherto obtained. The notion of “uncertainty” is present when neither outcomes nor probabilities can be estimated ex ante because no one knows anything beforehand about the incident occurring. Hereby, the phenomenon of “unknown unknowns” emerges. Often future innovation contains “unknown unknowns”. Examples of large “unknown unknowns” are COVID-19 and the Ukrainian War, both with considerable potential impacts on micro- and small-sized enterprises. Research has shown that entrepreneurial SMEs are often situated within the notion of Knightian uncertainty [4]. SMEs typically have limited resources and therefore are vulnerable to uncertain incidents such as, e.g., bankruptcy of larger customers or key employee accidents/illness in own organisation [3]. Entrepreneurial literature has revealed that uncertainty has both an important positive and negative impact on SME value creation [4]. In summary, uncertainty is an important prerequisite for micro- and small-sized enterprises with both positive and negative impacts on innovation for value creation.

Value Creation and the Entrepreneurial Organisation to Pursue Innovation

Entrepreneurial SMEs are usually flexibly organised [3]. The entrepreneurial manager is often a key person in the decision-making process in SMEs [3,16], representing a domino impact from managerial decisions to action upon the decision in the organisation to create value. It is then important for the entrepreneurial manager and organisation to understand future business model innovation.

Business models were first noted by Malhotra [20] as an antecedent to explore business innovation and value creation. Malhotra [20] stressed Business Model Innovation (BMI) as representing a “... radical rethinking of the business as well as the dividing lines between organisations and industries” [20]. Since then, many definitions have been advanced, mainly rooted within streams of innovation literature. Reviews on the development of BMI in the literature reveal disparate approaches [21,22]. However, overall business models are defined in the review conducted by Massa et al. [23] as, “a description of an organisation and how that organisation functions in achieving its goals (e.g., profitability, growth, social impact) and hereby creates value”. Furthermore, Massa et al. [23] in their literature review note four dimensions for BMI actions, respectively: the customers, the value proposition, the value proposition creation (activities and capabilities) and the description of actual value creation. Nailer and Buttriss [24] highlight that research is scarce on “BMI as practiced” where interactions are driven by the value proposition to reach out to the network and environment to create value for society. BMI aims to develop individual firms in a value-creating activity system [24]. In uncertain conditions, competitive imperfections emerge for BMI to provide potential insights for new entrepreneurial value creation. In summary, the research reveals the value proposition contained in BMI for use by small- and micro-sized enterprises; however, this is not hitherto illustrated in practice.

Value Creation and the Entrepreneurial Literature Branches

The three entrepreneurship literature branches explain different paths for value creation [9]. Imperfections in the market provide entrepreneurial opportunities [10] for value creation. Sarasvathy [12] contrasts the notion of “effectuation” with the notion of “causation”. The two notions are dichotomies; however, in practice both notions can be used by entrepreneurs dependent on the level of entrepreneurial expertise. The latter notion of causation is understood as the traditional business planning processes upon emerging opportunities used in Larger Enterprises (LE) [12]. “Effectuation” on the other hand notes the specific entrepreneurial behaviour with associated expertise as essential for value creation. Moreover, Baker and Nelson [13] note ”bricolage” as a path for value creation stemming from a diverse range of scarce resources that is coincidentally available to the SME. In summary, these three entrepreneurial literature branches focusing on SME value creation then contain three different notions and recommendations for future innovation and SME value creation dependent on uncertainty and the entrepreneurial manager and organisation to unleash future value creation.

1.1.2. Individual and Organisational Behaviour for Value Creation

Entrepreneurial traits for action have previously been researched in the big five personality traits notion [8]. A taxonomy has been developed from the collection of thousand different personality patterns. The big five notion consists of the following, respectively: (1) conscientiousness, (2) extraversion, (3) agreeableness, (4) openness, and (5) neuroticism [25]. Subsequent literature suggests the personality characteristics of entrepreneurial behaviour to be as follows, respectively: high levels of conscientiousness [26] and emotional stability [27]. However, Welter et al. [9] call for the reinvigorating of entrepreneurial behaviours in empirical research to reveal what behaviours might matter in SMEs as this remains a rather open question. The reinvigoration of behaviours can be performed through literature taking as a point of origin the seminal notions developed by Jung [28].

Value Creation and the Limitations of Individual and Organisational Behaviours

Argyris [29] noticed early on that humans cannot embrace and process all data and information. Therefore, obvious relevant data can be left unnoticed as shown through his notion of the “ladder of inference”. The figurative notion of a ladder emphasises that the human mind selects relatively few data from a dataset to process for action in the end. The rest of the data are left unnoticed unless other persons challenge the perception developed by the first person for a more thorough discussion of the action to obtain successful value creation in the end. Both individual entrepreneurial behaviour and organisational behaviours are then relevant to review for a more thorough understanding of action for innovation to create value.

Individual behaviour for value creation is based on a set of psychological attitudes guiding the preferred behaviour of humans. This claim is based on Jung’s [28] notion of archetypes forming opposite dichotomic personalities, which was further elaborated by Jacoby [30] and later again by Csikszentmihaly [31]. Jung [28] highlighted the opposite continuums regarding individual behaviour, respectively: introversion versus extroversion on how people react to inner or outer experiences; thinking versus feeling on how individuals make logical or emotionally charged decisions. The two continuums in combination provide a simplicity of four preferred behaviours, respectively: focus on “details and procedures”, on “people and caring”, on “new ideas and involvement” and on “goals and competition”. Creative people and creative teams in Jung’s [28,32] suggestion can integrate these opposing dichotomies of preferred behaviours for increased creativity and action to unfold in successful innovation for value creation, because inferences are challenged and better understood. Csikszentmihaly [31,33] supports Jung’s [28,32] suggestion through the description of creative value creation as a “flow” of actions. The literature review on personal and collective team behaviour conducted by Hauke [34] demonstrates that the greater the composite integration and complementarity of different behaviours in teams, the more creativity unfolds for value creation. This is supported by Jin, Madison, Kraiczy, Kellermanns and Xi [35]. In summary, individual behaviours need to be combined with other individual behaviours to pursue innovation and value creation.

In the organisational literature stream, Cameron and Quinn [36] developed the competing value framework, which the authors emphasise has a “high congruence with well-known and well-accepted categorial schemes that organise the way people think, their values and assumptions” [36]). They make, amongst others, references to Jung [28] as a source for this congruence. Cameron and Quinn’s [36] framework has two underlying continuums, respectively, internal focus versus external focus and stability (reasonings are based on thinking) versus flexibility (reasonings are based on emotions). This provides again a simplicity of four organisational behaviours noted as enhancements on the organisational level to the four preferred individual behaviours previously noted by Jung [28] and called, respectively, ”hierarchy and controlling”, ”clan and human development”, ”adhocracy and innovativeness” and ”market and competition” organisational behaviours [36]. The organisational behaviours are perceived as opposites and competing but also complementary and overlapping. Different businesses require different organisational behaviours—dependent on the business context and the aims of the organisation [36]. In summary, these continuums on the individual level can be extended to the organisational level and hereby reveal the innovation capabilities on both levels, which can support the understanding of innovation approach in the micro- and small-sized enterprise. These literature approaches within managerial and organisational behaviours emphasise opposing and complementary continuums of behaviours at the managerial and organisational level for sensemaking of future innovation to pursue value creation for sustainability. However, limited research has been conducted within SMEs [1] and thus also within entrepreneurial micro- and small-sized enterprises. A knowledge gap is hereby revealed for research.

1.1.3. Overall Summary of Literature Review and Gap in Extant Literature

Literature on value creation in terms of instrumental, moral and intrinsic value is emphasised in the entrepreneurial literature to be fragmented and disperse. Additionally, the BMI literature is fragmented and disparate on value creation in practice. Moreover, the behaviour of management and the behaviour of the organisation are stressed as important for value creation both in the entrepreneurial and organisational literature.

However, no coherent approach has been shown hitherto in the literature to shed light on the research question. In micro- and small-sized enterprises, the challenge of future innovation to transform business for good is enhanced by limited resources and the experience of high uncertainty, which form the following questions for the research contribution based on the literature review:

• Do micro- and small-sized enterprises aim to reach beyond their own organisation to create value for customers, partners and society, and what UN SDGs do they pursue?
• Can the entrepreneurial literature branches reveal how micro- and small-sized enterprises can fulfil their aim for innovation to create value?

The answers to the two questions provide contributions to the research question and to the knowledge gap revealed. Next, the research context, method and research approach are explained.

2. Materials and Methods

First, the micro- and small-sized enterprise multi-case context is explained to illustrate the underlying antecedents for the research conducted. Then, the research approach is highlighted together with elaboration of the longitudinal research process and research team. Next, the behavioural data of research participants are explained to show the participants’ preferred behaviour to enact. Finally, the data collection and the analyses conducted is highlighted to show how the findings emerge as a contribution to the research question.

2.1. SME Multi-Case Context

The research is conducted among micro- and small-sized enterprises according to the EU definition of small- and medium-sized SMEs [2] in a municipality in Denmark in the period 2018 to 2022. A call was announced in Spring 2018 by the business association in the municipality for the research participation of micro- and small-sized enterprises in a ”management-for-growth” research project. The research project aimed to reveal how micro- and small-sized enterprises can manage growth. The municipality wanted to achieve a more robust development of micro- and small-sized enterprises in the municipality to enhance employment and value-added activities as often highlighted in public approaches to SMEs [1]. The call resulted in 24 self-selected micro- and small-sized enterprises participating in the research project starting during 2018.

The micro- and small-sized enterprises had to fulfil the following criteria to participate in the research:

• Size of enterprise from 3 to 30 employees.
• Enterprise has existed in the last 3 years.
• The enterprise had to be in normal operation—without insolvency risk.

These criteria were set for research to elaborate on micro- and small-sized enterprises, which had overcome the start-up phase of the enterprise and had proven their ability to operate their business but had, however, stalled in their innovation and growth. Criteria 3 was not fulfilled by two of the enterprises as they had financial challenges, but they participated in the research anyway.

Micro- and small-sized enterprises have a large potential in the EU ”to become an important driver of the sustainability transition” [1]. The European Commission [1] note an urgent need for more accurate data collection and monitoring of SMEs in general regarding the progress of sustainability transition. The participating micro- and small-sized enterprises in this research provide enhanced monitoring for more thorough insights to emerge as they already operate in their business with opportunities for innovation to create value for sustainable transition.

During the research, several enterprise participants dropped out, because of time constraints in three of the enterprises and a merger with larger enterprises in three of the enterprises. This shows the uncertainty and volatile circumstances micro- and small-sized enterprises experience as also illustrated in the extant literature [7].

By the end of the longitudinal research period, 18 micro- and small-sized enterprises had participated in the research from mid-2018 to mid-2022. COVID-19 had an impact from 2020 to 2021; however, all research participants overcame this COVID-19 impact through various new enterprise initiatives. Some of these initiatives continued after COVID-19 and other initiatives were corona-specific and therefore closed at the end of the COVID-19 period. The multi-case micro- and small-sized enterprise context of the research conducted can then contribute to the understanding of longitudinal transformation to pursue sustainability. The 18 micro- and small-sized enterprises are distributed among micro- and small-sized enterprises with two-thirds of the participating enterprises situated in micro-enterprises and one-third being small enterprises. This makes it possible to especially follow micro-enterprises, which represent the majority of SMEs in the EU [1]. Most of the participating enterprises are within the range of 5–15 employees, with five enterprises lower and three enterprises higher and none having more than 25 employees. This notes the research context to be very focused on micro-enterprises and the low-end size of small-sized enterprises according to the EU definition.

The participating micro- and small enterprises were situated in the NACE (Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community) categories sorted into ecosystems by the EU [1]. The ecosystem context of micro- and small-sized enterprises is interesting for the enterprise to access resources and knowledge [1] about their businesses. The micro- and small-sized enterprises participating in the research are connected to the following ecosystems as shown in

Table 1. Overview of participating micro- and small-sized enterprise ecosystems.

NACE Industries Included in Industrial Ecosystems	Number of SMEs May 2018–2022	%
2. Agri-food	3	17
3. Construction	4	22
6. Electronics	7	39
10. Mobility/transport/automotive	2	11
11. Proximity, social economy and civil security	2	11
Total	18	100

.

Table 1 shows that the micro- and small-sized enterprises in the research are situated in a range of different activities in several ecosystems. Nearly half of the enterprises are situated in knowledge-intensive businesses requiring capabilities at a master level in the organisation. All the enterprises require capabilities of at least craftsmanship levels for business operations. However, only very few of the participants had knowledge beforehand about business and organisational development. The impact of adding both business and organisational development can then be followed from the beginning to the end of the research conducted. In summary, heterogeneous self-selected micro- and small-sized enterprises participate in the research with the ability to conduct innovation for value creation. Uncertainty is present, however, with extensive operational knowledge about their businesses providing a robust field for research to be conducted.

2.2. The Research Design, Process and Team

The research aims to link the entrepreneurial theory and practices to enhance the value creation of SMEs in society with the call of interaction between theory and practice [14]. The longitudinal qualitative multi-case study conducted [37,38,39] used the Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach to form iterative processes to link theory and practice and bridge this gap often revealed in SMEs [14]. The PAR approach is characterised as noted by McIntyre [40] as, “learning to listen and listening to learn”, which means recursive dialectical dialogs for learning among participating actors and researchers. Additionally, Creswell and Poth [41] underpin PAR as, “focused on helping individuals free themselves from constraints found” and that ”it is practical and collaborative because it is inquiry completed ‘with’ others rather than ‘on’ or ‘to’ others”. It means that the research participants “voice” their thinking and need for support and the hindrances emerging throughout the research process for the research to become meaningful for all involved.

The reflective processes in the PAR processes conducted is grounded in the notion of Weick and Quinn [42] and termed as a “reversed Lewin”. The phases according to Lewin’s [43] seminal thinking of “unfreeze–rebalance–freeze” is then reversed to first “freeze”, to make the micro- and small enterprise managers aware of the current state in their enterprise for value creation. This was performed in the initial meeting and in the subsequent PAR learning modules. This started in the initial meeting by gauging the preferred behaviour of the manager [28,30,32] through the use of the Insights^® online tool [44]. Here, the manager answers a 20 min online questionnaire and the report on the organisation’s own behaviour based on a large database on personal behaviour characteristics is automatically generated and elaborated afterwards in collaboration between the respective manager and the researchers. It means that the manager evaluated the organisation’s own behaviour according to the measurement conducted and subsequently estimated the behaviour of the organisation based on his/her understanding of its own behaviour.

The coherence revealed in the literature review between the dimensions of the individual and organisational level of behaviours make it relatively easy for the manager to assess the organisational behaviour based on the knowledge obtained from assessment of own behaviour. Then, the discussion to ”re-balance” through identification of needed future activities needed for value creation were discussed with the manager. In the end of the initial meeting, the “un-freeze” was performed for the manager to prioritise the most interesting initiatives/projects to pursue for value creation of the enterprise. The developed data and material were captured in photos and notes for feedback to the manager with illustrations and innovative initiatives listed. The “reversed Lewin” research approach was used continuously in the PAR learning modules, which consisted of the following overlapping themes, respectively: Business Model Innovation, environmental impact, management and organisation, value-based pricing, digitalisation, marketing and branding and the next steps after the end of the learning modules was conducted. In the learning modules, the managers discussed their own challenges in their enterprise in relation to the learning module theme and shared experiences and insights on how to work with these challenges.

The learning modules were supplemented with individual sparring meetings conducted in the micro- and small-sized enterprises by selected members of the board network also participating in the research. Thereby, participants could gain more insights and knowledge about value creation close to the enterprise’s own operations. Then, facilitated network meetings were launched for participants to continue discussions amongst each other for value creation. This was arranged in collaboration between the business organisation of the municipality and the university researchers and continued until the start of 2020. A graphical overview is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 shows that research activities were extensive in the project and developed from the initial meeting, the PAR learning modules, the sparring in individual micro- and small-sized enterprises and in collaborative network meetings ending in a follow-up interview in 2022.

The research was conducted by a core research team of two senior researchers respectively coming from law and governance, organisational development and from innovation domains. Additionally, the project manager came from the business strategic domain. Self-selected people from various board networks interested in providing PAR support for value creation in micro- and small-sized enterprises also participated. The micro- and small-sized enterprise managers continuously provided data in the research through their own recorded presentations and discussions with researchers, board network members’ reports on topics discussed in the meetings and recorded discussions among each other. In summary, extensive material is available for research to be conducted.

2.3. Research Participant and Enterprise Behaviours

The micro- and small-sized enterprise managerial and organisational behaviours were measured using Insights Discovery^® tool version 2018 [44]—evaluated by The British Psychological Society [45]—to reveal the managerial behaviours, both conscious and less conscious. The managers evaluated the organisation’s own behaviour stated by the tool, which was revealed during research to be very close to the manager’s own perception of the organisation’s behaviour and that of people knowing the manager well.

The conscious behaviour represents the behaviour deliberately aimed for by the manager. The less conscious behaviour represents the behaviour shown when the manager on one hand is in “flow” [31,33] and “performing” effortlessly for positive results; and on the other hand, when the manager is in “stress”, efforts may escalate to produce negative and limiting results of the behaviour. Csikszentmihaly [31] describes “flow” in the following way: “It often involved painful, risky, difficult activities that stretched the person’s capacity and involved an element of novelty and discovery”. Many of the respondents described the feeling when things were going well as an almost automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consciousness. Csikszentmihaly [31] revealed patterns in flow of not worrying about failure and the issue of activities becoming autotelic (Greek word for something that is an end because it provides enjoyment in the specific moment). This was noted by Csikszentmihaly [31] to provide participants with a stronger self-concept and ability to cope with uncertainty.

The ability of flow embraces interesting issues for this research and thus is listed in a few words for, respectively, the positive performance caused by flow and for the negative performance caused by stress for each personal behaviour category. It means that flow in introvert thinking behaviour illustrates methodical and precise actions, in introvert feeling behaviour illustrates sharing and loyal actions, in extrovert feeling behaviour illustrates many radical ideas and convincing actions and in extrovert thinking behaviour illustrates demanding and prioritised actions as noted in

Table 2. Overview on managerial and organisational behaviours.

Persona-lity Behavior	Description of Individual Behavior	Managerial Behaviour, Number of Participants, +Preferred Conscious	%	Managerial Behaviour, Number of Participants, Less Conscious: +Flow −Stress	%	Description of Organizational Behavior	Organisational Behavior −Number of Participating Organizations	%
Introvert thinking	Focus on Details & procedures ordering things & tasks	3	16	4 Flow: Methodical, precise Stress: Stuffy, critical	21	Hierarchy & Control with processes to achieve effectiveness	11	61
Introvert feeling	Focus on people & caring in the organization	1	5	2 Flow: Sharing, loyal Stress: Stubborn, evasive	11	Clan & Human development to achieve wellbeing	6	33
Extrovert feeling	Focus on new ideas & involvement of all people	4	21	8 Flow: Creative, convincing Stress: Overexcited, Careless	47	Adhocracy & Innovativeness to achieve creativity/fun	0	0
Extrovert thinking	Focus on goals & competition for actions	10	56	4 Flow: Demanding, prioritized Stress: Aggressive, Rude	21	Market & competition to achieve goals and efficiency	1	6
Total		18	100	18	100		18	100

, which provides the overview on the individual and organisational behaviours of the research participants.

Table 2 shows that conscious managerial behaviour is predominantly present in extrovert thinking with a focus on demanding and prioritised action to reach goals through competition. Second, extrovert feeling focused on creative and convincing action for the development of new ideas and the outward involvement of people is present. Third, introvert thinking focused on methodical and precise action for details and procedures for ordering things and tasks is present. Fourth and least, managerial behaviour is present in people and caring focused on sharing and loyal action for the inwards involvement of people in the organisation. This means that a focus on people and caring can often be neglected in management practices in the present research participants’ micro- and small-sized enterprises.

Additionally, it is very interesting that less conscious management behaviour representing both flow and stress behaviour predominantly shifts to extrovert feeling. It means that the participating micro- and small-sized enterprise managers in flow show a much less demanding and prioritised focus on goals and more focus on ideas and convincing behaviour often resulting in different ideas being launched continuously. This supports the anticipation of the EU Commission [1] that significant innovative capabilities are present in SMEs; however, this also raise concerns of too many ideas being missed for implementation in the context of scarce resources where prioritisation is needed for successful innovation to create value.

Additionally, Table 2 shows that the organisational behaviour is predominantly concentrated on hierarchy and control with processes outlined to achieve effectiveness. Next, clan and human development are focused on to achieve wellbeing. The foremost complementary organisational behaviour then is presented for managerial behaviour. However, the same managerial and organisational behaviours are present in four enterprises, and they are all situated in the introvert managerial and organisational behaviours. This illustrates the openness of the complementarity between individual and organisational behaviours so that people with other behaviours than the manager are employed for innovation and value creation in micro- and small-sized enterprises. However, also for a few participants there was a high inward approach on activities. In summary, the micro- and small-sized enterprises are generally good at employing people with other behaviours to complement themselves. Moreover, new ideas can become overwhelmingly high, causing a lot of experiments without results in the end in the enterprise.

2.4. Data Collection and Analyses

Data are collected from the initial meeting through the recording of meetings. Additionally, the material developed in the meetings on individual and organisational behaviours and discussions on how this can fit into the business model of the enterprise is collected. Moreover, sections of presentations made by the research participants and discussions among research participants in the PAR learning modules are recorded. The follow-up interviews with research participants are also recorded. All recordings are transcribed for thorough analyses. In this paper, the emphasis of analyses is on the follow-up interviews conducted for longitudinal findings to emerge from mid-2018 to mid-2022. The follow-up interviews focused on what value the enterprise has created in the period and how this value was created, as well as which elements in the PAR process were most useable for what.

The analyses of this considerable amount of data were conducted after the research ended. In the analyses, first-order citations were selected, discussed and reflected upon by researchers to reveal meanings and patterns emerging in the collected data [37]. Thereby, the SME participants were heard through their own explanations [37], which can be revealed and illustrated. The citations were compared to capture both converging and diverging lenses of meanings noted by the research participants [37,38,39] for the second-order selection of the essential citations for micro- and small-sized enterprises to pursue innovation for value creation. The second-order selections formed the development of the model to show the contribution to the research question posed. The research material is anonymised for the privacy of the participants to be fulfilled and ethical standards for research to be upheld.

3. Results

The research question on how micro- and small-sized enterprises in practice can transform business for good is revealed along the two paths framed by the questions posed from the review of the extant literature in Section 2. The first path shed light on what value creation micro- and small-sized enterprises pursue to transform business for good. This is investigated through the value proposition aimed for in the micro- and small-sized enterprise, which reach beyond the entity’s own organisation and into the network and environment of the enterprise [24]. The second path shed light on how micro- and small-sized enterprises have been able to transform business for good in the longitudinal research period. This is investigated using the entrepreneurial branches [9] by micro- and small-sized enterprise. The individual and organisational behaviours are integrated along both paths to reveal the interaction of behaviours for direction and value creation processes in micro- and small-sized enterprises. The two paths contribute to the literature and to practicing understanding transformation in the UN SDGs in the end. However, the findings on the uncertainty prerequisite are analysed to reveal how scarce resources and uncertainty continuously form a challenge to whatever the research participants do and aim to pursue.

3.1. Scarce Resources and Uncertainty to Have a Continuous Impact

The micro- and small-sized enterprises in general highlight the scarcity of resources experienced and the challenges of prioritisation of their activities. These two issues were emphasised across actual businesses and actual behaviours. The scarcity of resources makes it challenging for managers to prioritise activities because time is not available for the prioritisation to be performed, and the lack of prioritisation makes resources scarce as without prioritisation a tendency is present to aim for everything simultaneously. The shift in managerial behaviour shown in Table 2 from the conscious, “extrovert thinking” management behaviour with focus on demanding and prioritised behaviour to reach goals to the less conscious ”extrovert feeling” management behaviour with flow to focus creative and convincing behaviour often results in ideas being launched continuously. This explains the dilemma in the findings between the lack of prioritisation illustrated and the scarce resources present. One of the research participants highlighted this as follows:

“N18—prioritisation and the development of procedures provided peace of mind in daily operations to focus more on the future important issues”.

This explains the ongoing challenges of micro- and small-sized enterprises to pursue value creation through innovation. In summary, the enterprises need new ideas and the innovation provided and need the resources to run their daily operations.

First, focus is set on the analyses of value creation.

3.2. First Path—Do Micro- and Small-Sized Enterprises Pursue to Reach beyond Their Own Organisation to Create Value?

When micro- and small-sized enterprises have limited resources and is exposed to high uncertainty as highlighted in the literature review in Section 2 and empirically highlighted in this research. It can be anticipated that their value creation is focused on prosperity and survival of own organisation short term and not so much on the long-term value creation as precondition to continue enterprise operations. However, also short term the participant organisations need to be able to create value for their customers. The growth experienced by the micro- and small-sized enterprises in the research period, e.g., the increase in the number of employees in the enterprise reveals that the customers are willing to pay for the actual value created by the enterprise. Own value creation is then dependent on the enterprise ability to reach out and provide value to others through focus on the value proposition.

In the research process and follow-up interviews, the following value creation beyond the entity’s own organisation was emphasised by the interviewees—sorted by how many of the enterprises overall referred to the different aims of value creation:

N1, N4, N9, N13, N15: “Develop optimal solutions to work in practice for customers”.

N5, N6, N7, N8, N17: “Solve puzzles for enhanced solutions to work at the customer site”.

N2, N3, N11, N14, N16: “Develop the SDGs to be experienced by customers in practice”.

N10, N12, N18: “Secure customers so that they can operate and have peace of mind”.

From the above listing of summarised value creation beyond an entity’s own enterprise, all the micro- and small-sized enterprises are focused on customers and how their own enterprises can create value for customers in practice, either performed by developing optimal solutions to work in practice or by solving puzzles for enhanced solutions to work in practice. There is some overlap between these two approaches as some of the enterprises begin the customer relation by “solving puzzles” (N4, N13) for customers, when something has gone wrong at the customer site, and then later return to the customer for the new development of the optimal solution in new assignments.

When the focus is on “developing optimal solutions”, the management behaviour is primarily situated in “extrovert feeling” (new ideas and involvement) and when “solving puzzles” is in focus, management behaviour is primarily situated in “introvert thinking” (details and procedures). This shows a link between the kind of value to be pursued in the enterprise and managerial behaviour. A point of origin to transform business for good is then situated in managerial behaviour. However, the organisational behaviour of “hierarchy and control” can also transform business for good as the ability to begin a customer relationship through “solving puzzles” (N4, N13) is helpful. The combination of management behaviour of “extrovert feeling” (new ideas and involvement) and organisational behaviour of “introvert thinking” (details and procedures) makes it possible for the enterprises to use a combination of managerial behaviour and organisational behaviour to create value for the customer.

These predominant aims of the micro- and small-sized enterprises participating in the research note that they reach out to their customers to transfer business for good in collaboration with customers. This means a general aim for SDG 17, if their customers themselves aim to transform their business to reach the UN SDGs. This reveals an important supporting role of micro- and small-sized enterprises for the UN SDGs carried out through the underlying support to customers.

Moreover, several of the micro- and small-sized enterprises directly focus on the UN SDGs represented by SDG 3: “Good health and wellbeing” (N2, N11); by SDG 9: “Industry innovation and infrastructure” (N14); by SDG 11: “Sustainable cities and communities” (N16); and by SDG 12: “Responsible consumption and production” (N3). It means that five of the micro- and small-sized enterprises directly focus initiatives to transform their business and create value in accordance with the UN SDGs. In the aim to pursue the UN SDGs, the management behaviour is often based in “extrovert feeling” (new ideas and involvement), both conscious and less conscious, and organisational behaviour for “clan and human development”. This is in accordance with an outward understanding of what is needed to reach the SDGs, typically emphasising higher moral and intrinsic values than instrumental values.

The rest, represented by three enterprises (N10, N12, N18), are focused on customers to be relieved from operational burdens and provide peace of mind to customers. Management behaviours are here predominantly as “extrovert thinking” (goals and competition) to help customers to win and organisational behaviour focused on “hierarchy and control” to provide customers with the necessary details and procedures for operational effectiveness to secure customer confidence to be reached in the end.

3.2.1. Combined Instrumental, Moral and Intrinsic Value Creation Often Pursued

In general, the micro- and small-sized enterprises aim to deliver first-class quality in relevant parameters in their field, e.g., machinery to work non-stop, conduct the craft work exactly as required for the customer to be happy to use it afterwards, clean up after the work is done, etc. This means that prices are typically set above average in the market to address quality conscious customers willing to pay for the value-added work provided by these micro- and small-sized enterprises. This approach among micro- and small-sized enterprises reduces claims, waste and re-work, which can be very time-consuming, unpleasant and expensive in the end for the customers. It shows an additional contribution present from micro- and small-sized enterprises to transform business for good through value creation by doing the right thing (efficient) in the right way (effective) the first time and thereby emphasises the instrumental, moral and intrinsic values all together.

Some of the micro- and small-sized enterprises also provide work for vulnerable and disabled persons (N2, N3, N7, N18) to give them an opportunity for “decent work” in their enterprise as noted as part of SDG 8. This again underlines the focus of micro- and small-sized enterprises to transform business for good for contributions to people and society addressing both intrinsic and moral value creation. This aim is distributed among managerial and organisational behaviours. The micro- and small-sized enterprises experience challenges themselves caused by high uncertainty as shown in the context section and analyses in this paper. However, this does not hinder them in providing support to others with similar challenges caused by upcoming events in their lives.

3.2.2. The Development of Value Creation in the Research Period

In summary, it is found that the value creation of micro- and small-sized enterprises overlaps on instrumental (money), moral (justice) and intrinsic (well-being) values—typically, addressing not just one of these value categorisations. Instead, value creation to transform business for good is addressed coherently by the participants among value categories according to the specific issues relevant in their ecosystem. Their own managerial behaviour and organisational behaviour is also revealed to have an influence on what values are focused on in the enterprise.

The longitudinal research conducted reveals that the enhanced focus on value creation and organisational development in the research process can improve value creation in an organisation’s own enterprise. The instrumental financial performance is increased for all participating micro- and small-sized enterprises except one enterprise (N16). The intrinsic value of providing work for people shows an increased number of employees in nearly all enterprises except for three enterprises (N3, N13, N14) and the number of employees is the same for two enterprises (N10, N15). Here, it must be noted that two enterprises (N13, N14) had negative financial results when entering the research process and therefore in the period needed enhanced focus on the organisation’s own financial transformation of their business to survive.

Moral and intrinsic values were mentioned by nine managers to increase the capabilities and wellbeing of the managers, e.g., improved communication, enhanced prioritisation and further enjoyable everyday life (N1, N2, N4, N5, N7, N13, N15, N17, N18), and the rest of the managers were unchanged typically emphasising too much work. Moral and intrinsic values for employees are according to seven managers also increased as, e.g., improved communication in the organisation, more engagement and involvement (N2, N4, N5, N7, N13, N15, N18). The rest of the enterprises are unchanged with managers mentioning, e.g., disengaged employees and limited involvement from the employee side in the business of the enterprise. This shows that the increase in manager values to a high extent is also perceived as improving the values of employees, as seven enterprises overlap with the manager’s well-being. In summary, this means that micro- and small-sized enterprises not only transform business for good for others in a combined value creation approach, they can also make an improved difference in their own organisation by increased instrumental, moral and intrinsic value creation in combination.

3.2.3. Summary of Path 1

As an overall summary, micro- and small-sized enterprises reveal a surprisingly strong focus on future innovation to transform business for good both directly addressing the UN SDGs 3, 8, 9, 11 and 12 and subsequently addressing customers for solutions to work in practice (SDG 17) [46]. Additionally, some of these enterprises also take social responsibility for vulnerable and disabled persons. The value creation is overlapping and combined on instrumental, moral and intrinsic values. These managers do not distinguish between these value creation types—unless they are financially forced to focus on instrumental value more than the others. In general, the research participants are exposed to uncertainty with scarce resources and challenges in the prioritisation of actions. Therefore, the next section will reveal how these enterprises pursue future innovation for value creation.

3.3. Second Path—Can Entrepreneurial Literature Branches Reveal How Micro- and Small-Sized Enterprises Can Fulfil Their Aim of Innovation to Create Value?

In this section, light is shed on the value creation processes through analyses regarding the three entrepreneurial literature branches on value creation. The three literature streams stress in short, respectively, the importance of “opportunity creation” stemming from planning to realise opportunities and value [10]; “effectuation” stemming from manager actions and networks to support the realisation of value creation [12]; and “bricolage” stemming from resource limitations and the ability to reorganise for new available resource combinations to create value [13]. The three literature branches are respectively analysed in the following sections.

3.3.1. Opportunity Creation

All the participating micro- and small-sized enterprises have many opportunities emerging during the research period, typically addressing multiples of products, processes, markets, resources and organisation [3,47]. As a point of departure in the research, participants do not specifically separate customer’s and their own enterprise’s products, services and operations for utilising opportunities for value creation. The managers have a holistic approach to utilising opportunities for idea generation as illustrated in the following quotes:

“N5: Fun to find better solutions to existing applications among industry actors”.

“N1: Find solutions when something has gone wrong in large infrastructural projects”.

It means that an ecosystem approach [1]—an understanding of the operational links to the customers and business partners—is inherently present in these enterprises. There is typically a patchwork of opportunities coming from either own-idea generation or from inquiries by customers. In the participating enterprises, there is a predominance coming either from the organisation’s own ideas—shown in 8 enterprises (N1, N2, N3, N4, N5, N14, N16, N18)—or from customer inquiries—shown in 10 enterprises (N6, N7, N8, N9, M10, N11, N12, N13, N15, N17). In enterprises with a predominance of opportunities stemming from the organisation’s own new ideas of the managers, the management behaviour is predominantly focused on “new ideas and involvement”, both conscious and less conscious, and not on management behaviours of “details and procedures” [28,32].

In the enterprises with a predominance of opportunities coming from customer inquiries, the management behaviour often focusses on “details and procedures”, both conscious and less conscious (N6, N7, N11, N12, N13, N17) [28,32]. This forms two different approaches to the utilisation of opportunities, either positioning the enterprise for the transformation of business to pursue sustainability according to the organisation’s own new ideas from managers with the need for organisational behaviour to support the idea based on “details and procedures” or positioning the enterprise for the transformation of business according to “details and procedures” with the need for organisational behaviour to support the customer inquiries. In the latter approach, a surprise came to some of the participating enterprises in the research process on their own ability to segment customers (N7, N13, N15) as follows: “I did not know that I could choose my customers. Other SME managers say that this is not possible. However, it is possible. I have done it now and that is extremely good” (N7).

The customers opted out by the enterprises are customers violating the moral value of fairness in business operations as follows: “They [specific customers] are slowly destroying me with unreasonable behaviour towards me and my enterprise for serving them” (N13). This shed light on micro- and small-sized enterprises’ basic aim to serve customers and then not having the overview and realising that they can select the “right customers” for their business for increased value creation. This can be achieved because of the relatively limited size of the enterprises, which make them able to “choose their environment” to pursue the value creation they aim for. The findings reveal that opportunity creation is essential for micro- and small-sized enterprises. However, the enterprises do not as a point of departure conduct the planning for opportunity creation to materialise, unless they are forced to do it to fulfil tender conditions from customers. This creates a challenge in prioritising everyday operational activities due to a lack of structural planning to guide the understanding in the organisation of what to do when and why to fulfil the aims for value creation in the enterprise.

In summary, all micro- and small-sized enterprises have an opportunity creation approach to business either through their own ideas or inquiries from customers or both. However, often the micro- and small-sized enterprises lack a more rigorous organisational approach to materialise opportunities. The prioritisation of operational activities then becomes a challenge for the materialisation of their strengths in creating many opportunities for value creation.

3.3.2. Effectuation

The effectuation literature takes as its point of departure the initiatives of the manager and the network created by the manager to support value creation [11,12]. This approach is anticipated to support the realisation of value creation in contradiction to the more rigorous causation approach containing settled planning of deliveries, budgets and time horizons conducted in the “causation” approach.

All micro- and small-sized enterprises use their own capabilities in their business and often with the manager as the central distinctive knowledge person required as shown in the following typical quote from these enterprises: “I am the only one able to transform business [to do what is relevant to develop business for value creation]” (N1, N2, N3, N5, N6, N7, N8, N9, N12, N14, N16, N17, N18). All in all, this is claimed by 13 enterprises. Management behaviours are distributed among all behaviours [28,32] for this claim to be posed. They perceive themselves as experts in their business field. It is excellent that appropriate knowledge is present to pursue sustainability. However, if this is not counterbalanced in the organisation to support the realisation of opportunities through other behaviours to complement them (as seen in N2, N6, N7, N12) or with a broader network to support and complement the transformation, this can cause hinderances for the aimed innovation to materialise in practice [28,30,31,32,33,34,35] as illustrated in the following examples.

The impact of counterbalanced organisational behaviours to discuss opportunities is noted by all enterprises as follows: “It is good to have co-managers/employees to provide input on ideas and opportunities for realising them” (all participants). However, some of the enterprises experienced varying degrees of engaged employees as follows: “Something happen when employees are hired. After a high-engaged period they become very unengaged” (N14) or “It is difficult to have the time to answer all questions from employees” (N1) or “They [employees] do not have sufficient capabilities to conduct activities in the enterprise” (N1, N2, N6, N7, N8, N9, N12, N14). Management behaviours are here distributed among all behaviours [28,32]. This shows the need for competence and the organisational development of both managers and employees with the aim of collaborative organisational prioritisation to support micro- and small-sized enterprises. This is shown not to be sufficiently addressed in some enterprises in daily operations and thereby the manager can miss the opportunity to materialise the value creation at hand.

The impact of broader network support to discuss opportunities is also noted by 11 enterprises in varying network connections as follows: “We would not have been here if our different networks has not provided so fantastic support to us” (N13) or “It is providing new energy to us to have interesting network discussions” (N4) or “It is important to go out there and see and discuss how things are used” (N5). Management behaviours for utilising networks are typically not focused on “details and procedures” but instead on behaviours, which reach out to people and the environment, such as “new ideas and involvement” and “goals and competition” [28,32]. These citations show that networks in varying degrees of collaboration are useful for micro- and small-sized enterprises to transform their business and dependent on management behaviour to reach out to people for value creation.

In summary, all micro- and small-sized enterprises have an effectuation approach to business through utilising their own knowledge and to some extent utilising the counterbalance of behaviours to support actions and prioritisation in their enterprise. Networks are more limited in use and dependent on managerial behaviours to reach out and realise value creation. This means that the effectuation literature branch overlaps and complements the opportunity creation literature branch; however, it has its own limitations from the potential limited use of counterbalancing behaviours in their organisation and limited reach to networks if managerial behaviours are focused internally in the enterprise. The prioritisation of operational activities then becomes a challenge through the potential lack of counterbalancing discussions in the organisation.

3.3.3. Bricolage

The bricolage literature takes as its point of departure resource limitations and the lack of resources to be overcome by coincidentally available resources for the reorganising of resources by the entrepreneurial manager to overcome the resource limitations [13].

All micro- and small-sized entrepreneurs have limited resources (all participants). However, resource limitations are experienced in different ways. Some of the limitations are concerned with the uncertainty experienced and the money required for investment (N1, N9, N14). This can create dependence on banks/lenders as follows: ‘Finally, we are able to take our own decisions—without the bank to be involved, should we then once again be dependent on banks through new loans?’ (N1) or ‘The lender is present at the Board of Directors and that is really annoying to have somebody present not knowing the business—only the numbers’ (N14). This shows the hesitation and also to some extent a hostile approach to the dependence on someone else in their own enterprise—even though they can provide needed resources.

The majority of micro- and small-sized enterprises lack employee resources—both to have the hands and feet available to do the operational work and to have the knowledge available to operate the business as follows: “We need to close our business some days in the week not to have existing employees to burn out” (N3, N18) or “We need employees with craftsman’s knowledge to do the jobs, otherwise too much re-work will harm customers and hurt our reputation” (N3, N6, N7, N13, N18).

The micro -and small-sized enterprises participating in this research have to some extent tried to reorganise resources to pursue the transformation of business; however, this has been conducted with limited success and with limited focus on the antecedents needed for this reorganising, e.g., by trying to hire women into craftsmen knowledge domains, typically conducted by men (N5, N7, N16), and involving employees/partners as co-owners in the enterprise. The first example of reorganising attempts requires other working conditions and how to practice them. The latter example of reorganising resources is challenging for micro- and small-sized enterprises as to some extent they perceive a dilution of their own decision power (N2, N11, N12, N16, N17) as shown in the following citation: “I am not sure that they will respect the values of the enterprise” (N2); or the need for additional resources as shown in the following citation: “the partner do not have the money required yet” (N12); or some unrealistic anticipations of employees as shown in the following citation: “They have to behave as owner managers—[even though they are planned only to own a small fraction of 5% of the enterprise]” (N17). This makes it difficult to reorganise within a reasonable timeframe as time is needed for the understanding and negotiations of reasonable terms. Manager behaviour in these activities is distributed among all management behaviours; however, this is performed in spoken words relating to the organisation’s own manager behaviour of, respectively, “people and caring” (respect the values of the enterprise), “details and procedures” (money required not there yet) and “goals and competition” (employees to focus on enterprise goals) [28,32]. This reveals a darker side of manager behaviours not being able to perceive the needs of the enterprise beyond own manager behaviour. Hereby, the prioritisation short term is hindering middle-term and long-term value creation in the enterprise and hindering the development of the resources needed for value creation.

In summary, all micro- and small-sized enterprises have a bricolage approach to business through resource limitations in their businesses. Unfortunately, some of their attempts to overcome these limitations are not really taking off in the short term. This means that the bricolage literature branch complements and overlaps with the opportunity creation literature and effectuation literature branches. However, it has its own limitation of developing and reorganising resources available short term for future innovation to transform business for good to create value long term for society as listed in the UN SDGs.

3.4. Overall Summary and Future Steps for Value Creation to Transform Business for Good

The findings reveal that the participating micro- and small-sized enterprises are predominantly exposed to uncertainty with limited resources and challenges of prioritisation of activities in their own organisation. The participating enterprises typically take a holistic and combined approach to value creation, pursuing value creation within instrumental, moral and intrinsic values.

The participating enterprises have under these premises a surprisingly strong focus on transforming business for good, both directly addressing the UN SDGs [1] and subsequently addressing customers for solutions to work in practice and potentially supporting customers for transformations to pursue sustainability. Some of these enterprises also take social responsibility for vulnerable and disabled workers, indirectly addressing the SDGs by extending support to these people.

The longitudinal research conducted shows that micro- and small-sized enterprises can improve their financial results and number of employees, which shows that customers are willing to pay for the value creation performed by the enterprises. The enterprises then actually succeed in providing the pursued value to customers as shown below:

• Develop optimal solutions to work in practice.
• Solve puzzles for solutions to work at the customer site.
• Develop UN SDGs to be experienced by customers in practice.
• Secure customers so that they can operate and have peace of mind.

However, it seems that none of the hitherto noted entrepreneurial literature branches alone can explain and support micro- and small-sized enterprises in their aim to pursue value creation for sustainability. All three literature branches have noted very useful issues for micro- and small-sized enterprises, respectively: continuously use many ideas to realise opportunities, continuously use themselves/their network and continuously use resources to reorganise into value creation. The literature branches also have limitations for value creation, respectively: weak organisational frames for planning, lack of use of organisational and network behaviours and unrealistic short-term antecedents for reorganising of resources. Each of these limitations cause lack of prioritisation of activities to have necessary resources. However, the useful issues noted in the three theory branches can complement each other for more thorough reflection and action to be undertaken in the enterprises to strengthening value creation. Many opportunities provide a robust base for transformation and insights of own behaviour to counterbalance other behaviours to provide prioritisation to support activities and support the understanding of antecedents for reorganising of resources. All three entrepreneurial branches can then be useful to integrate as illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2 shows as a point of departure the value creation aims to transform business for good, noted as UN SDGs 3, 8, 9, 11, 12 and 17, respectively. The value creation is perceived in the combination of instrumental, moral and intrinsic value creation by the research participants. They do not as the point of departure distinguish between the value approaches unless they have financial challenges and thereby need to focus on instrumental value creation. In short, the micro- and small-sized enterprises strive to create intrinsic value for end users/end consumers through a moral and fair process among involved actors for all to obtain instrumental value to continue operations.

3.4.1. Further Research

The three literature branches are listed and illustrated as overlapping on the continuous strengths present for fulfilling the aims of value creation and the limitations present in each literature branch and the hindrances experienced through these limitations. The fundamental requirements are listed as revealed in the research conducted, respectively: to become aware of the entity’s own value creation to pursue sustainability, to become aware of the entity’s own behaviour and organisational behaviour and become aware of the development of resources for use in an integrational approach combining the three entrepreneurial literature branches. Thereby, the strengths in each literature branch can support value creation and avoid the limitations of each in micro- and small-sized enterprises.

It means that cross-disciplinary research is needed for the integration of the fragmented hitherto literature branches to support enhanced knowledge to be disseminated. Moreover, it is revealed that micro- and small-sized enterprises are very important for value creation in society as anticipated by the EU [1,46] and therefore further investment in research is needed to support these enterprises.

3.4.2. Practical Implications of the Findings

The research sheds light on the need for micro- and small-sized enterprises to be supported in accordance with their own premises and context as the definition of entrepreneurs highlights, respectively, opportunity creation, the development of the entity’s own and organisational behaviours and the reorganising of scarce resources.

First, it means that the entrepreneurial managers need to become aware of and be able to act in accordance with the entity’s own context in an action learning approach in their own organisation. The integration of literature branches can extend the insight and understanding of entrepreneurial managers for enhanced value creation. An open approach for action learning is thus needed by entrepreneurial managers to support them in their own organisation.

Second, cross-disciplinary action learning modules need to be developed based on the integration of research conducted in micro- and small-sized enterprises. Further research can here make important contributions to the action learning modules to be conducted in collaboration between researchers and entrepreneurial managers. This requires investment by public bodies in projects, which can develop useful action learning modules. Considerable value creation can be anticipated long term.

4. Discussion

In the literature review, is highlighted that the research hitherto has been very limited in this context and this research approach is then taken as point of departure [1,4,5,9]. Extensive further research is thus needed to fill the knowledge gaps revealed. The research in this paper forms a point of departure and contributions; however, further research can be extremely helpful to enhance the understanding.

The research conducted has a longitudinal approach with 18 multi-case enterprises to reveal patterns in the research material answering the research question. However, qualitative empirical research is difficult to generalise, as context is important and it is different [37,38,39] as seen in the findings in this research. Further research is thus needed on the research question of micro- and small-sized enterprises to enhance the understanding of the findings for use in other similar enterprises.

The number of multi-case enterprises means on one hand, that a more thorough understanding of patterns in the context can be obtained and hereby improve the use of the findings in Figure 2 in other contexts and in own enterprise. On the other hand, the number of micro- and small-sized enterprises in this research make the analyses time consuming and complex and comprehensive and hereby important emerging issues can be unforeseen neglected [37,38,39]. Further research in a similar context can then contribute to the understanding of the rigor of the findings.

Moreover, the point of departure for highlighting the issues of value creation and behaviour in this research is taken as the definition of entrepreneurs [8]. However, other issues could also be relevant and maybe more relevant than the one highlighted in this research. Further research is then needed to take other points of departure to enrich the insight and understanding of value creation regarding the different value creation categories [17].

Additionally, an even more longitudinal research period could add to the understanding of uncertainty and how uncertainty can impact micro- and small-sized enterprises and their capability to transform business for good [3,4,5,6,7]. The findings in this research reveal room for improvement in these micro- and small-sized enterprises to advance their aim of value creation. A longer research period can provide extended data/analyses to improve the understanding of other important emerging phenomena.

Further research needs to guide the development of learning modules based on both the use of the issues highlighted in the definition of entrepreneurs and the integration of the entrepreneurial literature branches. This research needs to be conducted in collaboration with the entrepreneurial managers to strengthen the practical application in an action learning approach. It means that entrepreneurial managers with scarce resources at hand play an essential role for effective and efficient action learning modules to be developed. This can be vulnerable as revealed in this research where some enterprises left the research project because of different uncertainties [6] and thereby limitations in the findings can occur.

5. Conclusions

The research shed light on how micro- and small-sized enterprises can pursue future innovation for sustainability. The findings reveal that micro- and small-sized enterprises aim for future innovation to transform business for good in a holistic combined value creation approach integrating instrumental, moral and intrinsic values, respectively, in UN SDGs 3, 8, 9, 11, 12 and 17.

None of the hitherto noted entrepreneurial literature branches can alone support micro- and small-sized enterprises. However, all three literature branches contain a useful potential integration overcoming limitations for the prioritisation of future innovation to transform business for good. The findings are summarised and revealed in Figure 2 to illustrate the concept of future innovation to pursue sustainability in micro- and small enterprises. Further research is needed on their ability to fulfil their aims to pursue the UN SDGs.

Further research is needed along several paths to support the practical implications highlighted as prerequisites in the research conducted in this paper.