Sustainable internal corporate social responsibility and solving the puzzles of performance sustainability among medium size manufacturing companies: An empirical approach

Studies have been conducted within the domain of internal corporate social responsibility, yet less attention has been given to how sustainable internal corporate social responsibility can be employed to accelerate performance sustainability in medium-sized manufacturing companies. Additionally, the culture of internal corporate social responsibility practice in SMEs has been largely ignored by most of the existing studies. This research, therefore, identified the potential influence of work-life balance, wellbeing at workplace, resilience, and job stress on the performance and sustainability of the SME sector. This is achieved through the conceptualization of a research model that empirically tested the influence of four exogenous variables on performance sustainability using data from 270 respondents from Malaysia, having employed Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) as a technique of analysis. The results of the study reveal that wellbeing at workplace and job stress as dimensions of sustainable internal corporate social responsibility have a strong influence on performance sustainability. Practitioners can gain valuable insights into how to effectively use workplace wellbeing and job stress to achieve performance sustainability, which is especially important now that SMEs rely heavily on sustainable competitive advantage to stay in business and create value for organizations. © 2022 The Author(s)